to apply it. it was applied by the majority opinion in the brown and williamson decision. it s the godfather of the major rules or major questions doctrine. justice breyer wrote about it in the 1980s. the supreme court adopted that. the brown and williamson case applied it in the case you referenced, justice scalia s opinion. what that opinion says is it s okay for congress to delegate various matters to the executive agencies to do rules, but on major questions of major economic or social significance, we expect congress to speak clearly before such a delegation. that had not happened, in my view, with respect to net neutrality. i felt bound by precedent, therefore, to apply the major questions of rules doctrine. i know in the decision you say you ll know the difference with you see it. i think that s why the other
amendment? robert bork described it as an inkblot. do you share that assessment? so i think the ninth amendment and the privileges and immunities clause and the supreme court s doctrine of substantive due process are three roads that someone might take that all really lead to the same destination under the precedent of the supreme court now which is that the supreme court precedent protects certain unenumerated rights so long as the rights are as the supreme court said in the gluxburg case rooted in history and tradition and justice kagan explained this well in her confirmation hearing that it s quite important for allowing that protection of unenumerated rights rooted in history and tradition which the precedent definitely establishes. but at the same time making
public. of course, i think think all should be maybe public, the ones that and i don t like this committee classification, what happened, but the chairman did allow me to make those public. and in those documents, in one e-mail from march 2002, you discuss limits on contributions to candidates saying, and i have heard very few people say that the limits on contributions to candidates are unconstitutional. although, i for one tend to think those limits have some constitutional problems. i just want to know with the buckley case from 76 being settled law, it seems like you have some issues with those rulings. how do you view the precedent creat creat created by buckley, and would you respect it? the buckley divide, as you know, senator, is that expenditures on the one side, congress does not have substantial authority to regulate contribution limits. on the other side, congress does have authority to regulate and has done so.
an umpire, who s not wearing the uniform of one litgator or another, one policy or another. someone who reads the law as written, informed by history and tradition in precedent and constitutional cases. the law is written, informed by the cannons of construction that are settled in statutory cases, that treats litigants with respect, that writes opinions that are understandable and that resolve the issues. i think civility and collegiality help make a good judge. a good judge understands that real people are affected in the real world. the litigants in front of them but also the other people affected by the decisions the judge decides or the court decides in a particular case. a good judge pays attention to precedent, which is on constitutional cases, of course rooted in article 3 and critically important to the
times. we get agency cases, that s what we do on the d.c. circuit. i ve upheld them i m sure in the same range if not many more times. so i think my record will show that i ve ruled both ways on those kinds of cases. i don t i have i have a pro this or pro that record. one last question in this area. so the major rules doctrine actually raises questions to me about your view of chevron. as you show, it s that 1984 case. you would think it s settled law, but i ll ask you that. courts generally refer to reasonable interpretations of agencies. what would you replace it with if you re not going to uphold it? the precedent says that courts should defer to