For Stevens, Chevron Decision Defined How Supreme Court Changed

The late Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, a Republican appointee who eventually became a liberal voice, famously said that he didn’t move left—the court moved right.

One of his most consequential opinions, Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, shows that as much as anything Stevens touched in his 35 years on the high court.

The 1984 ruling generally gave administrative agencies more leeway to interpret ambiguous federal statutes. It was a 6-0 decision that Stevens thought was merely a common-sense application of previous rulings. It makes “a lot of sense to give the people in the government who ...