Missouri Joins States Following SCOTUS, Striking Down Chevron Deference
Four red states move to end judicial deference in 2025.
June 18, 2025 – Missouri is set to join a growing number of states banning judicial deference which allows courts to defer to administrative agencies when interpreting ambiguous laws. The states’ actions follow a similar decision by the U.S. Supreme Court last year.
Missouri’s SB 221 has passed the state Senate and House and was delivered to Governor Mike Kehoe (R) May 30. Since March 2025, Kentucky, Texas and Oklahoma have each enacted legislation prohibiting judicial deference on the state level.
The decision to keep all statute interpretations within the scope of the judicial branch, rather than deferring to executive agencies, echoes the Supreme Court’s 2024 ruling in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, which overturned Chevron doctrine.
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Chevron, a judiciary precedent stemming from the 1984 Supreme Court case Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., held that courts should defer to administrative agencies, like the Federal Communications Commission, when interpreting ambiguous statutes – particularly those agencies’ tasked with enforcing and executing relevant statutes.
“Agencies have no special competence in resolving statutory ambiguities. Courts do,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion striking down Chevron last summer.
While GOP-controlled states have moved to eliminate the Chevron doctrine, Maine recently considered a bill that would codify judicial deference into state law, though the act did not pass.
Since 2013, 14 states have ended or restricted state court deference to administrative agencies, according to Ballotpedia. That number will rise to 15 if Missouri's governor signs SB 221.
