Neil Gorsuch: “The point of a precedent--I am trying to be as helpful to you here as I can be, Senator--is that it represents…”

Courts should not be in the business of perpetuating administrative edicts designed for one emergency only because elected officials have failed to address a different emergency.

Today, independent agencies do not just exercise executive law-enforcement powers.

Everything is an emergency. We've moved so much up to the federal level that needs to be done by states. And now through delegations of authority, through emergency legislation of all stripes, we've moved it over to the executive branch…

Apart from pointing to habitual drunkard laws, the government has not even attempted to prove that any other specific historical principle might justify its prosecution in this case.