As the 43rd Attorney General of Indiana, I spent years fighting the overreach of unelected bureaucrats who treat the American people like pawns in their endless game of regulation. Back in September 2024, I wrote about how Justice Neil Gorsuch nailed it in his book Over Ruled: We’ve drowned in a sea of rules so vast and obscure that ordinary folks get blindsided daily, paying the price for Washington’s unchecked appetite for control.
The Chevron doctrine was the crown jewel of that mess, handing federal agencies a blank check to interpret laws however they pleased, with courts reduced to mere spectators.
Thankfully, the Supreme Court finally shut down that doctrine last summer in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo. No more rubber-stamp deference to agency whims.
Now, judges can actually do their jobs—scrutinizing whether these alphabet-soup regulators are staying within the lines Congress drew. It’s a victory for accountability, and it’s already rippling through the system.
But let’s not kid ourselves: The war on over-regulation is far from won. Just look at the latest drama in the world of payments, where a proposed $38 billion settlement between Visa, Mastercard, and a coalition of merchants is making headlines. It’s progress, but there is more work to be done.
For two decades, merchants have been battling these card giants in court, accusing them of antitrust violations that jack up “swipe fees”—those interchange charges tacked onto every credit card transaction. In 2024 alone, those fees hit $111.2 billion, up from $100.8 billion the year before and quadruple what they were in 2009. Small businesses, from the corner grocery to the family diner, get squeezed hardest, passing those costs straight to you and me at the checkout.
The settlement, announced earlier this month, promises some relief: Fees drop by 0.1 percentage points for five years, with bigger cuts—down to a 1.25% cap—for standard consumer cards over eight years. Merchants get more say in what cards they accept, ditching the old “honor all cards” rule that forced them to swallow premium rewards cards alongside everything else. And surcharges? Up to 3% without the usual handcuffs.
On paper, it looks like a win. Economists backing the deal, including Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, project $224 billion in savings for merchants and consumers by unlocking real competition in payments. That’s no small potatoes—especially for the mom-and-pop shops that can’t afford Washington’s endless fee-for-service bureaucracy. As someone who defended Hoosier businesses against federal overreach, I see how this proposed settlement feels like progress toward a market-driven fix doing what regulators often can’t: Delivering targeted relief without the collateral damage of one-size-fits-all rules.
But here’s the rub—and why Gorsuch’s warning still rings true. Not everyone’s cheering. Groups like the National Retail Federation and the Merchants Payments Coalition are pushing back, arguing the deal doesn’t go far enough. Fees would still hover around 2% for many transactions, and there’s no ironclad incentive for banks to lower their cut. Worse, it leaves the door cracked for Visa and Mastercard to hike rates elsewhere, perpetuating the very “upward spiral” that’s padded their profits at our expense.
U.S. District Judge Margo Brodie, who rejected a smaller $30 billion version of this accord back in June, called that earlier payout “paltry” because it kept fees artificially high and stuck merchants with outdated mandates. She was right to demand more, but it is important to ensure this is ultimately handled by the courts and private actors, lest government regulators get involved.
Let’s not forget what has happened on the debit card side of this house of cards. The Federal Reserve’s long-looming Regulation II, which I called out last year for capping interchange fees in the name of “consumer protection,” is what happens when Washington gets directly involved.
New research from the Consumer Bankers Association shows it could spike bank fees by $1.3 billion to $2 billion annually, hitting unbanked households—disproportionately working-class and minority families—the hardest. Nearly 6 million Americans already live without basic banking access, per the FDIC. We don’t need rules that push more of them into the shadows.
This swipe fee settlement isn’t perfect, but it’s a reminder of the need to sidestep the regulatory trap. Challenges to Regulation II have found stronger standing in the wake of Chevron’s repeal and without the decision’s shadow, courts like Brodie’s can keep the pressure on, forcing private players to negotiate fairer terms instead of hiding behind agency shields.
Imagine if we’d waited for Washington bureaucrats to “fix” swipe fees: We’d get another layer of D.C. dictates, enforced by faceless officials who never set foot in a real store. No thanks.
The Electronic Payments Coalition, representing big banks like Chase and Bank of America, even backs this deal because it undercuts a Senate bill that would invite federal meddling in lieu of private sector initiative. As their chairman put it, why trust Walmart to slash prices voluntarily when you can mandate it—and watch the innovation dry up?
Gorsuch saw it coming: Rules for how we work, play, live, and now pay. They’ve exploded unchecked, turning the rule of law into a weapon against the ruled. The Chevron reversal is our chance to hit reset—empowering courts to police agency overreach and letting markets breathe. This swipe fee accord is a tentative truce in that fight, but we must stay vigilant to get more power back into the hands of consumers. Judge Brodie needs to insist that consumers, bankers and credit card companies keep negotiating until they come up with a settlement that finally resolves this conflict.
