Chevron deference doctrine.

Debating someone about the Chevron deference doctrine, under which in many cases judges have to preemptively give more weight to a federal agency's interpretation of the law than to the interpretation of a citizen harmed by the agency’s action.

I argued that this effectively allows the agencies to be the judge in their own case (as to whether they are compliant with the law), and nobody can properly be the judge in their own case.

He responds that as a political scientist who taught American Government, I have a "filter" that shapes my perspective on this. True enough! But he, on the other hand, has worked in the federal executive branch, implying that he therefore has no distorting filter.

Nothing I could have argued would as thoroughly demonstrated my point as his own words did. (But I doubt he'll comprehend that.)