It may not be the sexiest case ever to appear before the Supreme Court, and is unlikely to provoke marches and counter marches in Washington D.C., or spur competing histrionics on cable news shows, but SEC v. Jarkesy has the makings of being a quiet, but transformative, landmark.

The case was heard this Wednesday by the high court, and directly takes on the gestating reach of the administrative state. In 2013, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged George Jarkesy, who was then a hedge fund manager, with securities fraud for allegedly overvaluing certain assets. The case was handled in-house, as it were, by an SEC Administrative Law Judge (ALJ), rather than by a federal judge and jury. To no one’s surprise, the SEC judge agreed with the SEC, and found Jarkesy guilty, fined him $300,000 and barred him from working in the securities industry. Also to no one’s surprise, the SEC Commissioners agreed with themselves six years later in upholding the finding and the penalties.

George Will wrote about this earlier in the week, pointing out how this is a rather typical example of how what has come to be known colloquially as the “administrative state” operates. He cited a 1994 Harvard Law Review article by Professor Gary S. Lawson titled “The Rise and Rise of the Administrative State,” and the part he quoted, in which professor Lawson describes a typical agency process, is too good not to share:

“The Commission promulgates substantive rules of conduct. The Commission then considers whether to authorize investigations into whether the Commission’s rules have been violated. If the Commission authorizes an investigation, the investigation is conducted by the Commission, which reports its findings to the Commission. If the Commission thinks that the Commission’s findings warrant an enforcement action, the Commission issues a complaint. The Commission’s complaint that a Commission rule has been violated is then prosecuted by the Commission and adjudicated by the Commission. This Commission adjudication can either take place before the full Commission or before a semi-autonomous Commission administrative law judge. If the Commission chooses to adjudicate before an administrative law judge rather than before the Commission and the decision is adverse to the Commission, the Commission can appeal to the Commission. If the Commission ultimately finds a violation, then, and only then, the affected private party can appeal to an Article III court. But the agency decision, even before the bona fide Article III tribunal, possesses a very strong presumption of correctness on matters both of fact and of law.”

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You can see the problem, right? Well, that’s pretty much how federal agencies have operated since the 1970s, and many state agencies have followed suit (think Colorado’s Air Quality Control Commission.) And it has only been getting worse. The 2010 Dodd-Frank Act gave the SEC pretty much carte blanche to impose penalties administratively.

Fast forward a few years, and Mr. Jarkesy finds himself in the SEC’s crosshairs, and is severely penalized by an ALJ. He appealed to the Fifth Circuit Court, on three grounds: first, that his right to a jury trial in civil cases under the Seventh Amendment was violated. Second, that the doctrine of non-delegation – that only Congress has the power to make law and cannot delegate that authority to another branch – was violated, in that the authority to decide to bring some cases before a federal court and others to an ALJ is a matter of rule of law, not mere agency discretion. And finally, that the for-cause protections afforded ALJ’s which place them outside the direct control of the president – even though they are part of the executive branch – is an affront to the separation of powers. The 5th circuit found in favor of Jarkesy on all counts, so now it is before the Supreme Court.

The most interesting of these contentions is the Seventh Amendment issue. The court has long held the jury trial right does not apply to instances concerning “public rights,” which it has defined as those which “arise between the Government and persons subject to its authority in connection with the performance of the constitutional functions of the executive or legislative departments.” But the court has never really set about defining limits to the “public right” doctrine. But it’s about time they did. As 5th Circuit judge Jennifer Walker Elrod wrote in her opinion finding in favor of Jarkesy, the concept of “when the federal government sues, no jury is required . . . is perhaps a runner-up in the competition for the ‘Nine Most Terrifying Words in the English Language.'”

The Supreme Court now has an opportunity to define those limits. No, such limits will not neuter the regulatory power of the executive branch agencies, and nor ought it. But it just might validate the Founders’ vision for this nation, that government power has limits. Not especially sexy, but certainly fundamental to how we govern ourselves, and to our national self-respect.

Kelly Sloan is a political and public affairs consultant and a recovering journalist based in Denver.