EXECUTIVE PREEMPTION

The most prominent issue here is whether, where Congress's own preemptive intent is ambiguous, courts should defer to the agency's conclusion that a statute preempts state law under Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. National Resources Defense Council.10 Such deference would create an important exception to the normal presumption articulated most famously in Rice v. Santa Fe Elevator Corp. that statutory ambiguity is resolved in favor of preserving state regulatory authority. In the early Republic, the Marshall Court acted to shore up a fledgling national government by curbing centrifugal impulses in the states.\n167 That result has to be wrong.168 When an executive official acts to preempt state law, she is not accountable to the states in the same way as a senator or a representative, but some level of political accountability remains.