Gutierrez-Brizuela v. Lynch

GORSUCH, Circuit Judge.

We recently confronted the thorny problem what to do when an executive agency, exercising delegated legislative authority, seeks to overrule a judicial precedent interpreting a congressional statute. In our constitutional history, after all, judicial declarations of what the law is haven’t often been thought subject to revision by the executive, let alone by an executive endowed with delegated legislative authority. Still, in recent years the Supreme Court has instructed us that, when a statute is ambiguous and an executive agency’s interpretation is reasonable, the…