Opinion | The ‘major questions’ doctrine gives the Supreme Court too much power

At least when the executive allegedly overreaches in implementing a law, there is a fundamental check and balance built into the constitutional framework: elections. But when the life-tenured, unelected members of the Supreme Court do so, it is well nigh impossible for corrective action to be taken — especially in view of the congressional dysfunction to which Mr. Will alluded. Far from restoring “constitutional equilibrium” (as Mr. Will asserted), the major questions doctrine seriously subverts that balance by giving the least representative branch of government extraordinary power to dictate (or nullify) public policy.

Eric Glitzenstein, Washington

The critique of the student loan forgiveness decision would not be so vehement if the major questions doctrine did not arrogate all power to the court.

It is not lost on Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. that Congress lacks the institutional alacrity to legislate in real time to counteract the Supreme Court’s ruling even when it flies in the face of the literal text of the statute. One might not agree with forgiving student loans (and I’m not sure that I do); however, the breach of the court’s own procedures is untenable in this case.

If the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority wanted to sue, it could have. No state had standing. The major questions doctrine, unlike all of the other doctrines cited in Mr. Will’s column, gives the court the power to decide policy issues. It is intentionally vague and is applied almost uniformly against Democratic policies.

There is no limiting principle to the sophistry reflected in this opinion and to the doctrine itself, regardless of one’s personal feelings on the outcome. The court needs to show its work. In not doing so, it has proved itself to be an emperor with no clothes.

Jeff Woldrich, Portland, Ore.