March 14, 2023 — Farmers and fishermen make their living the old-fashioned way — sweat and struggle. Increasingly they share another thing in common: oppressive bureaucratic oversight. If the Supreme Court can summon the courage this year, it can deal the bureaucrats a body blow and free millions of Americans from diktats from on high, each one of which makes their lives more difficult, more expensive and decidedly less free.
“Operating fishing vessels in the Atlantic is hard work.” So begins a brief to the high court on behalf of herring fishermen. In a new petition asking for the Supreme Court to review a case involving fishing for Atlantic herring, former solicitor general Paul D. Clement paints a picture reminiscent of last year’s Oscar-winning film “CODA.” You will be forgiven if you forgot that the movie featured two actors playing federally mandated monitors on the fishing boat where much of the drama plays out. The presence of the monitors — even the physical space they take up — is the sort of detail that makes a movie great, because it dives deep enough into the realities that reflect the lives made even more difficult by bureaucracy.
The role and cost of such monitors figure at the heart of Clement’s petition to roll back an out-of-control “administrative state.” Monitors figure as well in the tale of another bureaucracy — this one bedeviling the opposite coast, in California.