A federal court in Texas has thrown out the government’s ban on noncompete agreements that was set to take effect September 4.
In her ruling, Judge Ada Brown of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas wrote that the federal agency had overstepped its power when it approved the ban.
“The FTC lacks substantive rulemaking authority with respect to unfair methods of competition,” she wrote. "The role of an administrative agency is to do as told by Congress, not to do what the agency think[s] it should do.”
You’re absolutely right, it’s absurd and that’s the point. For the GOP court to say the FTC can do that, they will expect Congress to pass a law saying “the FTC has the authority to ban non-compete agreements of every kind” but that’s dumb and defeats the purpose of executive agencies, we agree. But that’s the point. Congress will rarely if ever be that specific, so anyone can argue a law is not what they meant and the agencies have no deference.
The end goal is agencies are powerless and Congress is paralyzed, so the judiciary has all of the authority to decide what everything means.