Professors Ilya Somin and Chad Squitieri debate whether the Supreme Court’s Major Questions Doctrine can be reconciled with textualism in the latest installment of the Georgetown Law Federalist Society’s Daniel Webster Debate Series.

Somin defends the doctrine as both an ordinary tool of textual interpretation and an important safeguard against executive assertions of sweeping power without clear congressional authorization. Drawing on recent disputes involving tariffs, student-loan forgiveness, environmental regulation, and pandemic measures, he argues that major grants of authority should require correspondingly clear statutory language.

Squitieri challenges the leading textualist defenses of the doctrine, arguing that they insufficiently account for the President’s constitutional role in the federal lawmaking process. He contends that the doctrine improperly privileges Congress when statutes are ordinarily the product of both Congress and the President, while suggesting that a reinvigorated nondelegation doctrine may offer a more coherent way to police executive lawmaking.

The discussion also examines Justice Barrett’s “babysitter” analogy, Justice Gorsuch’s separation-of-powers theory, the relationship between the Major Questions and nondelegation doctrines, presidential influence over legislation, and whether courts should alter their interpretive approach based on the political or economic significance of a case.

Recorded October 21, 2026, at Georgetown University Law Center as part of the Daniel Webster Debate Series, in cooperation with the Georgetown Center for the Constitution.