In a closely watched case last season, the high court abandoned a long-standing legal doctrine that gave agencies wide latitude to develop rules, even without express instructions from Congress. The judges also restricted how some federal watchdogs can pursue alleged wrongdoers, and they opened the door for some companies to launch new lawsuits against seemingly established government rules, some decades old.

Since then, the three separate but closely related decisions have influenced a wave of litigation, particularly from conservative and corporate interests chafing at the power of the federal bureaucracy. Between June and mid-October, these cases gave rise to more than 150 new or ongoing legal challenges, according to court records analyzed by The Washington Post and data collected by Democracy Forward, a legal advocacy group that had urged the court supreme to rule differently. . New citations include new and updated lawsuits, briefings, and decisions.

The lawsuits touch virtually every aspect of the U.S. economy, including federal labor law. Major companies, including Amazon and SpaceX, and major lobbying groups for restaurants and other industries, have incorporated elements of the Supreme Court’s new rulings into a series of lawsuits challenging regulations on wages, compensation overtime, whistleblower protection or union organizing, according to court records. . (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Post.)

Lobbying groups for AT&T and Verizon have cited these views in their campaign to thwart federal regulations that would prevent them from interfering with Internet traffic. Airlines including American, Delta and United cited one of these cases to block the government from requiring them to disclose baggage fees.

The wave of legal challenges illustrates the tectonic shifts underway in Washington, as voters cast their ballots in a hotly contested presidential race.

Just as he did during his first term, former President Donald Trump has widely called for rolling back a wide range of federal climate, education, health and labor regulations, arguing that they hinder economic growth. Vice President Kamala Harris, on the other hand, has called for new federal initiatives to combat fraud, tackle high fees and reduce the costs Americans face for prescriptions and other necessities.

The winner will face key, early decisions about which rules to issue or repeal, and which judges to appoint to decide disputes over them. All of these choices will play out in a significantly changed legal landscape, after the Supreme Court struck down a long-standing shield in favor of federal regulation.

For approximately four decades, the Supreme Court’s decision in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council essentially asked the justices to defer to federal agencies’ interpretations of the law, on the grounds that those regulators were best positioned to divine the intentions of an imprecise Congress. In June, however, the court rejected that framework, known as the Chevron doctrine, sending shockwaves through the justice system.

Republican policymakers quickly seized on this development in their fight against the Biden administration, targeting its climate change initiatives and protections for transgender students. Big companies have also sought to capitalize on the decisions to hit the government agencies that oversee them.

In October, for example, a federal appeals court ruled in favor of KalshiEx, a betting site that initially sought to allow bets of up to $100 million on the outcome of the presidential election. Regulators viewed the bets as an emerging threat to democracy, but judges sided with the company, which had argued that Congress had never explicitly granted the Commodity Futures Trading Commission the power to prohibit this practice.

An organization representing insurance marketers sought to capitalize on the ruling in its long-running fight with the Federal Communications Commission over robocalls. After the agency tried to crack down on some unwanted and automated contact, the Insurance Marketing Coalition told a federal judge in August that regulators did not have Congress’s blessing to issue such rules, citing the nullification of the Chevron decision by the Supreme Court.

A conservative-leaning group, NCLA has spent years seeking to chip away at Chevron. The group advised Relentless, a fishing company that sued federal rules that would require such companies to pay for federal observers. The Supreme Court heard its arguments in tandem with another company, Loper Bright, which accused Congress of ever giving the Commerce Department explicit authority to require industry-funded oversight.

“I don’t think there’s been enough time to fully understand the effects,” Chenoweth said of the aftermath, noting that lower courts have yet to rule on the initial claims filed by Relentless and Loper Bright. But he predicted the cases would have a “disciplinary effect” on regulators generally.

In the immediate aftermath, some conservative groups and big businesses were particularly quick to exploit the Supreme Court’s rulings against the Department of Labor, targeting a wide range of rules issued under Biden that aim to protect workers and their wages.

For years, the Restaurant Law Center has opposed Biden-era rules that aim to raise wages for tipped workers. But the group, whose board includes executives from Chipotle and Yum! Brands incorporated the Loper Bright decision into its overall legal strategy last July, leading an appeals court the following month to overturn the administrative policy.

The move left some experts worried about the future of federal labor law.

“Congress is going to have to quickly adapt to policymaking that takes into account this new legal landscape,” said Skye Perryman, president of Democracy Forward.