Is the "major questions" doctrine a trap for textualists?

No doubt, the major questions doctrine might seem appealing to those textualists concerned with reigning in the administrative state. But any benefit obtained by invoking the doctrine (and its focus on political calculations) to curtail agency action in a handful of one-off instances is almost assuredly outweighed by the cost of undermining the textualist enterprise (and its separation of legal and policy decisions) more generally. Textualists concerned with reigning in the administrative state ought to abandon the major questions doctrine and instead focus on doctrines consistent with textualism—such as the nondelegation doctrine, which limits Congress’s ability to delegate to unelected regulators the power to set national policy, regardless of whether a judge thinks that policy to be of “major” political importance. …

For textualists concerned with reigning in the administrative state, the major questions doctrine might seem like a step in the right direction. After all, the Supreme Court has been loath to enforce the nondelegation doctrine in recent decades, and sometimes enforcing the Constitution’s limitations on delegations of congressional authority is better than never enforcing those limitations at all. But invoking the major questions doctrine is the wrong way to enforce nondelegation concerns because invoking the major questions doctrine (and its focus on political calculations) comes at the cost of undermining textualism (and its separation of legal and policy considerations) more generally. Textualists would thus do best by rejecting the major questions doctrine and instead applying the Constitution’s limitations on delegations across the board—not just in those instances that a judge thinks to be of particular political importance.