Who gets to decide what the law means—Congress, agencies, or courts?

For forty years, that question was largely answered by a single Supreme Court case: Chevron. Under what became known as “Chevron deference,” courts were required to defer to an agency’s reasonable interpretation of an ambiguous statute the agency administers.

In this episode, Gwen and Marc explain what Chevron deference actually was, why it mattered so much to the administrative state, and how it quietly shaped everyday government decision-making—from environmental rules to labor protections to healthcare policy.

This isn’t an episode about technical doctrine for its own sake. It’s about institutional power.

Together, we explore:

• Why Congress often writes ambiguous statutes—and why that’s not a bug, but a feature
• How Chevron sh ...