Conservative Litigation Group Issues Call for Plaintiffs to Challenge IEEPA Tariffs
The Liberty Justice Center, a conservative litigation firm, issued a call for plaintiffs to challenge President Donald Trump's use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose tariffs on all goods entering the U.S. The group is looking to challenge this use of IEEPA "under the major questions and nondelegation doctrines."
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The major questions doctrine is a theory recently adopted by the Supreme Court, which says that the federal government may only regulate areas of major economic and political consequence upon explicit delegation by Congress. The nondelegation doctrine places limits on Congress' ability to delegate its enumerated powers.
The Liberty Justice Center said it's a "prominent public interest law firm" that has litigated "economic liberties issues," including a 2018 Supreme Court case that let public employees not pay union dues. The center will be aided in litigating the case by Ilya Somin, law professor at George Mason University's Antonin Scalia Law School.
The center said the ideal client is a "privately-held company affected by the tariffs that imports materials directly from one of the countries subject to the tariffs imposed by Trump under the IEEPA." While the firm doesn't have to be a small business, smaller importers are more likely to be "disproportionately harmed by the tariffs," the center said.