Rick Green

Welcome to the Intersection of Faith and Culture. It's the Wall Builders Show. Got a great interview for you today. I'm Rick Green, America’s Constitution Coach, starting to sound like Joe Biden when I'm speaking. I must have watched too many Joe Biden speeches. I'll try not to do that quite so often. Anyway, I'm here with David and Tim Barton, and later in the program we're going to have Marc Wheat with us. We're going to be talking about some of the Supreme Court cases that have come down the pike just the last few weeks. So much happening, so fast. Of course, David, America’s premier historian, and Tim, national speaker and pastor. And I'm a former Texas legislator. So if you want to learn more about the three of us, check out our website, wallbuildersc.om. All right, guys, I think that was my fastest opening ever, because we've got a lot of Supreme Court cases to talk about today. It's going to be cool.

Tim Barton

And Rick, this doesn't apply to Supreme Court.

But I would recommend now, instead of the Joe Biden impression, work on your cackling.

Rick Green

 How was that? Was that? Good, Good start right, was that good? Yeah, I'm working on it. You're working on it.

Tim Barton

Get the Kamala Harris impression going. But, man, so much happened at the Supreme Court this summer, so many things that I mean Chevron being a big one. There's several things we can point to that will change the landscape of the nation going forward. Maybe of government agencies, of government intrusion, a lot of really positive things that have happened that certainly is worth talking about.

David Barton

And and one of the groups that's been on the front line of getting involved in a lot of these cases and trying to change the direction of the court or help change the direction of the court by providing them good information, is a group called Advancing American Freedom, and that is their objective is to advance American freedom, and this is the group over which Mike Pence, former vice president, has headed this group and they've been super active in all of these court decisions and filing information with the court and amicus briefs with the court, etc.

And so Marc Weed is their lead attorney on this and he's been over so many of these cases and helping on that and he's got a great perspective on what's happening with the court. And we've talked about in some of the recent programs that there has been a real turnaround on the court in the last three or four years, particularly since Trump put justices on it, but this year was no different. A bunch of landMarc cases coming down this year that restore a lot of good freedoms, and Marc Wheat can tell us about it.

Rick Green

We're going to jump right in with Marc Wheat when we return. Stay with us, folks. You're listening to the WallBuilders Show

Break

Rick Green

Welcome back to WallBuilders. Thanks for staying with us. Marc Wheat, with us from advancing American freedom. Marc, what a a great time to be alive. As Reagan said, I'm glad I don't live in pale and timid times. But man for the uh, for the supreme court, and these, all of these cases in the judicial system, uh, it's uh. I not going to say it's fun to watch, but this is a great time to have you on and talk about all this activity.

Marc Wheat

Well, Rick, it's great to be here, and you just reminded me of the ancient Chinese curse of may you live an interesting time, and I don't think that there is a more interesting time in the last several generations to be alive in our republic 

Rick Green

I mean it does feel a little bit like it's hard to keep up because it's it's a big thing happening almost every few days. I started to say every week, but it feels like it's multiple times a week. I mean, you know, obviously, the big stuff that's been happening in the presidential race in that last few weeks. But the Supreme Court, once again this summer, huge decisions and some big, big deep state decisions, some of those decisions that are what we call around here the fourth branch, that is, just the bureaucracy that runs the show too often. Big decisions getting rid of Chevron, I mean this, this Jarkessi case, big deal. We've been talking forever in our Constitution classes about the lack of due process and on so many of these administrative courts. So this is good stuff. I mean I, I, I have to admit I'm an optimistic guy and I didn't see this many victories coming. What about you?

Marc Wheat

Well, no, we didn't either. Well, no, we didn't either. And you know we also didn't foresee that in the Trump-Pence administration that there would be three Supreme Court justices added to the state court, and really that has changed the whole game. Yeah, and you know, I think conservatives always joke that you needed all nine justices in order to get a 5-4 decision, but we've seen, you know, lots of 6-3 decisions and unanimous court decisions that have been surprisingly conservative, and I think that what we are all witnessing is the Supreme Court becoming part of the judicial branch rather than just a second legislative branch, and that's been hard for some people that we know and love to appreciate.

Rick Green

Marc. That is the heart of it right there, man. It's getting them back in their proper role under the Constitution and out of this legislating and literally having unaccountable, unelected lawyers on this small group making law for America. I don't know about you. I have enjoyed both the way that a lot of these decisions have been written where I'm a country boy, you know and in law school I would just get frustrated with all the pontification and fancy words and going, hey guys, can't we keep this simple and to watch these Supreme especially Alito and Thomas and the decisions even over the last couple of years, how they're talking, you know, plain language to people, even in these decisions. I think that's been fantastic. And then the humility that it takes for Supreme Court justices to say, hey, this is not our job over here, we're giving this back to the, to the people that actually make the decision. So those are.

I mean, that's like tectonic change right there in terms of 

Marc Wheat

you know, I, I totally agree and I think that the fact that we have people on the court who are writing in ways that any interested citizen would understand issues are and we're moving away from justices who would write like fortune cookies or haikus right, and like moving away from that and let's say what has this court said before and why. It's just a really great refresher on what makes America great and why we are different than every other country on the planet amen, amen, so good.

Rick Green

Well, let's get in the weeds a little bit. Um at at advancing American freedom. You guys have been very involved in trying to get Chevron overturned and weaken the bureaucracy, the power of the bureaucracy, get it back in the hands of the actual members of Congress and, of course, this Loper decision is one everybody's talking about. But y'all have been at it with a bunch of different cases to get to this point. Can you do a you know, I don't know 60-second, two minute description of why overturning Chevron is such a big deal?

Marc Wheat

Well, it's been around since 1984. And what the 1984 Chevron decision said is that where Congress passes a law that gives the agencies different authority, where there is ambiguity that is a key word to remember ambiguity in the language that the judiciary had to defer to a regulatory agency. What Congress meant, and the way that has been twisted and distorted to the benefit of the growth of the administrative state, is that they have quickly moved away from ambiguity as a way of limiting their power and they have just made up the law as they go along. And it became so abusive that there are two cases low per bright and relentless that came up to the Supreme Court on the same issue of law. And this was the assertion that the regulatory agency over fisheries would say that we're so concerned that you fishermen, fishing boats, need to comply with federal law on the high seas. We're going to put a bureaucrat on your boat and you are going to pay that person's salary 

There was no authorization by Congress to do that. They were just making up the law and this was just a bridge too far for the administrative state. I mean this was so outrageous that both of these cases came up to the Supreme Court. These cases came up to the Supreme Court and you know the the 6-3 majority that we got in there through previous Republican presidencies said no, this was a mistake we made in 1984. We've seen how it's been so damaging to our republic. We're going to allow the judiciary to tell us what the law is, not what it should be, and that's going back all the way to Marbury v Madison in, I think, 1804, john Marshall's court that the judiciary is there to tell what the law is and not have to be bullied by it in the administrative agency.

Rick Green

I got. Gotta tell you, my favorite part of all this Marc is that a bunch of fishermen set the set the set the law straight, set the set the administration's straight. I just love that. I love the fact that this is a case of basically saying, okay, enough is enough, you're gonna put some guy on my boat that's gonna be watching me catch everything I catch this.

This is too far. And you think about it. I mean, that's not an exaggeration, that's literally what they were doing. And then multiply that by you can't even say thousands by millions of people that have been harassed by a bureaucratic state with ridiculous requirements and regulations. So this is a big deal and I don't think we realize. As Americans, we're so blessed. You know, we live in this incredible country and even with the administrative state and this horrible administration and all these things, we still have so much freedom and such, a, such an incredible economy in terms of, you know, the ability to make things and create things and go into business, and yet the boot of government is on our neck in so many ways. Imagine, when we get rid of all of these unnecessary regulations and bureaucrats and costs and everything else, how much more that will thrive. And that's really what this is about is getting back to basic freedoms.

Marc Wheat

Well, you know you hit the nail on the head, because there are so many big businesses, big associations, you know, who are so powerful that they themselves are able to capture some of these regulatory agencies to pass regulations that are of minor impact on them but will hurt competitors or Marcet entrants that might compete away their profits. That's right. And now, with Loper Bright and Relentless overturning Chevron, that means little guys like people who feed their families by going out on fishing boats every morning before dawn. They don't have to be harassed by the, by the agencies who are going, going beyond the law yeah but these little guys couldn't defend themselves 

Rick Green

I could just envision on the dock, you know, the government bureaucrat showing up the old Reagan quote you know, I'm from the government and I'm here to help right the most feared words and these fishermen saying, ah no, I don't think so.

Marc Wheat

Well, in our brief, we wrote to the court and said that, you know, putting these bureaucrats on a tight ship, either they're going to have to cut back on the number of crew that they have, because that creates dangers, or they're going to need a bigger boat. And we cited the movie Jaws as our authority.

Rick Green

That's great. I love it. I love it. Marc man, I could do this all day with you. So with our time left, though, can you just summarize a couple of these other cases, Because it's like we said at the beginning, which means we need to do this more often, but there's just so many big things happening. What would you say? Next highest priority may be in terms of just letting people know this is a big shift. There were so many cases in the last few weeks.

Marc Wheat

I think that there's a really important one called Jarcasey, who was suing the Securities and Exchange Commission, and what the SEC has been doing for years is, when they bring a civil action against somebody and it's threatening them with large fines, they compel them to go to the SEC's in-house kangaroo courts, which almost never rule against the agency from which they draw their salary.

Rick Green

Yeah, and very limited due process.

Marc Wheat

Right. So what the Supreme Court said in a unanimous decision is that no, if you're going to take away somebody's livelihood or the money that they have earned, they have a right to go to a federal court and have their case heard before a jury. So this was an enormous loss to the Securities and Exchange Commission, and there are many administrative law judges and other agencies that will also be threatened, and so it's really it's giving all the agencies pause about. Really do we really want to take this case in-house, or are we just going to go straight to federal court where a jury of one's peers can hear the claim? And that is critically important. That is very, very important.

Rick Green

It's huge man and it's fundamental to this idea. You know we say this around here a lot restoring America's constitutional republic and when you get into the weeds of that, that requires restoring proper jurisdictions and limited government at certain levels and all that. So for this one, that's a big deal to take this you know the due process and the things that people were not allowed to have in these administrative law courts and put it back where it belongs. This is again riding the ship. This is getting so many things corrected. I don't want to end on a negative, but it started off pretty bad a couple of weeks ago on the case and you guys spoke out against this as well that the social media censorship case was the only one that I saw in the last couple of weeks. That went the wrong way, but it is a big deal. Basically, as you said, I saw your statement. I couldn't agree with it more.

This whole thing of not using standing to avoid the duty of protecting rights Well, you put it this way the court should not use standing to avoid its fundamental duty protecting the rights of the, of the people. Um, and they did, they, they, they kicked the can down the road, didn't, didn't, you know, do the right thing here. What's? What's a way of of turning that one around, because it's not the first time we've seen standing as the as their excuse for not protecting the rights of the people.

Marc Wheat

You know, the court said that since the government stopped harassing people and preventing them from speaking their mind on social media, that the harm has stopped and so therefore they don't have standing. We thought that was absurd.

coming around another time there will be other people who will come forward and say you know, my views are regularly suppressed by my social media company, by my social media company, and I think that is coming from pressure from the White House or an agency or something like that. It will take another person like that to come forward and file a suit, but the fact that the government was pressure in order to take away someone's First Amendment rights, their freedom of association, freedom of speech, that is just outrageous and we think it was a terrible mistake for the Supreme Court to bounce the play to us on this issue of standing meaning that they couldn't state a claim because the the problem has since 

Rick Green

gone away yeah, and like you said, they well, and I would even change the word they stopped, they paused.

They paused because and they had them dead to rights. I mean there was so much. You know, there were already so many admissions that they had put the pressure on and the paper trail was there and everything. So, yeah, it was disappointing. They could have sent a really strong message don't do this again. And instead the message becomes well, you could probably get away with this if you do it again and then you get it over with before another case gets to the Supreme Court. So not a good one. Last one the emergency abortions in Idaho. What was that case all about and what did you think of the outcome?

Marc Wheat

The Idaho Idaho passed a pro-life law To protect babies in utero in Idaho, and the White House put pressure on all of their agencies to come up with any crazy theory to push abortion. It was signed into law by President Reagan after having received it from a Democratic House and a Republican Senate, and the Biden administration said oh well, what is buried in this law? That prevents hospitals from bouncing poor people from one hospital to the other? That includes abortion rights, no matter what the state says and where it's enforced, and the Supreme Court to one degree or the other. But ultimately they bought the administration's argument. They, they bought the administration's argument and and so they said that that that Idaho had to provide emergency abortions under this law. So it was a. It was a relatively minor law. But if it's not a minor law, if you're that baby who got it aborted

Rick Green

Right right, right right right. Yeah, no doubt so. So before I let you go, uh, last minute or so, here cases coming up that you guys are involved in that you think we have to keep an eye on 

Marc Wheat

well, we just filed one last week, uh, which is very important, um and uh.

This is a uh consumers research versus consumer product Commission, and our argument there is the president should be able to remove agency heads or agency commission members. Now we're talking about people who have been approved through advice and consent of the Senate in order to bring the executives all in control of executive agencies. We should not have rogue administrative agencies. The president ultimately has to take accountability for what the agencies do, and that's that's our argument. Agencies do, and that's our argument.

Again, this is cutting back on this so-called fourth branch of government and making it clear that there are three competing powers. And you know and we touched upon this earlier is that most Americans think the most important part of the Constitution is the Bill of Rights, the First Ten Amendments. We think it's actually the structure of the Constitution itself. It is dividing power against itself three competing branches, and it's that competition that has more of an impact on ensuring our liberties as individual citizens than anything in the Bill of Rights, and so what we're trying to do here is to put this power back under the presidency, where people have an opportunity to vote for them, rather than keeping undelegated powers that are seized by unelected bureaucrats.

Rick Green

Amen, amen. Those checks and balances don't do any good if we don't actually use them. And, of course, Hamilton said we wouldn't have to worry about losing our freedom from the courts unless they got over into the legislative and started making law or into the executive and started enforcing the law. And that's where we've been, and so this is dialing it back. You guys are doing a great job. Advancingamericanfreedom.com. Advancingamericanfreedom.com. Marc Wheat. God bless you, man. Keep up the great work. Let's get you back soon.

Marc Wheat

Rick, thanks very much. I really appreciate what you're doing for our republic.

Rick Green

All righty man, Stay with us folks, We'll be right back with David and Tim Barton.

Break

Rick Green

We're back here on the WallBuilders Show. Thanks for staying with us. Thanks to Marc Wheat for joining us as well. Guys, we've got to get him back. That was a quick rundown of a lot of cases and a lot of things that, Tim, as you said at the opening of the program, are really going to impact the future of America and the way we should hear that when you say that is. That's going to impact my life, that's going to impact my backyard, my family, my business.

David Barton

I thought what Marc said was really good. The justices are now starting to write for ordinary people. When you read their decisions now it makes a lot of sense.

You don't feel like you have to have a legal degree to read the decisions and so they have really come down to the populist kind of level in a good sense, not a negative sense. 

Tim Barton

And the fact that you said they're actually being the judiciary instead of a second legislative branch was such a good point, because so much of what we have seen in the last five or six decades has been a I mean, rick, you've called it a core institution, right. So many of these phrases we've given it where the courts have gotten involved in creating and making legislation when that's not their role. And the fact that they're now moving back to more of a proper role, a proper understanding of the Constitution such important stuff and really it was a great point.

David Barton

You know, and it's significant too it takes a while for this to work down to where the people live.

If you remember some of the experiments they did with the animals years ago, where that if you had a dog that had been kept in a cage and you finally opened the door and let him out, every night he'd come back into the cage because that's where he's comfortable, that's where he had been.

And the courts we've had so bad decisions for like 60 years, like on religious liberty with the Lemon case, and the courts have now vacated that, but people are so used to not having a religion in public that they still think it's wrong. We're having to fight all these cases to get it done, and it's going to be the same way with the fourth branch and the Chevron decision, all these other decisions Marc covered. It's going to take a while for that to populate back down into where Americans live, but, man, they have opened the doors now for us to be able to do some things change America back to really a constitutional Republican, Tim, as you mentioned earlier, and as Marc mentioned, getting the judicial branch back to what it should be rather than being the second legislative branch. And so some great things happened in the court this year in that direction.

Rick Green

Well, we'll probably have even more programs on that very subject, and there's just a lot to cover. There's even cases we didn't get a chance to mention. That came down as well. So a lot of good news there. This could have been a good news Friday. We'll have to get Marc Wheat back to cover more of those in the future. Thank you so much for listening today. Be sure and visit our websites wallbuilders.com and wallbuilders.show and when you're there, make that one that we're doing. You're helping us and coming alongside us when you make that donation at wallbuilders.com. Thanks for listening to the WallBuilders Show.