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Everything about the comment above is totally incorrect when it comes to the law in the US. Just to give you a taste of how wrong this is: the case isn't even a
by light_hue_1 6y ago
Everything about the comment above is totally incorrect when it comes to the law in the US. Just to give you a taste of how wrong this is: the case isn't even about an executive order by a governor! It's about the rulemaking of the Secretary of the Department of Health Services. Not only is the parent wrong, the opinion actually goes out of it's way in the first paragraph to say this! "This case is not about Governor Tony Evers' Emergency Order or the powers of the Governor."
> In the U.S. executive orders simply don't and can't have the force of law without the support of statutory law, not relative to civilians[0]. If you want a law, it needs to be passed as a statute by the appropriate legislature and must become law via all the usual mechanisms.
This isn't true for many reasons including: the federal government controls a lot of what happens in the country indirectly and executive orders can decide what the law means (even if that meaning goes against what the law intended). Executive orders can for example suspend immigration. That absolutely affects civilians in an extremely practical way. More fundamentally, this kind of statement totally ignores how the legal system in the US works practically. Yes, there are laws, but laws are vague and must be interpreted. The federal government makes rules that interpret laws. These rules are what the law "is" practically. There is wide disagreement about what rules a particular law allows or doesn't allow. Executive orders can and do change these rules.
> That has nothing to do with corruption or taxes, and everything to do with long-established, well-thought-out, constitutional law. Yes, we're talking about constitutional law based on past skepticism of government
This is completely and utterly false! You shouldn't say these things without reading the opinion. Neither side made this argument at all and the court narrowly ruled that the rulemaking process had not been followed correctly.
> Also, the U.S. Constitution's requirement that State governments be (small-r) republican
There is no such requirement. This was also not about federal constitutional law, it was about the constitution of Wisconsin.
> extends the constraints on the President's EO power to the States' Governors.
Absolutely not. Each state has its own constitution, the federal constitution says no such thing at all. Also this case was not about an executive order!
> the Court might well rule that the clause does mean that Governors cannot impose emergency rules without statutory support
Again, please read the opinion before you say such things. The main argument was that some details of the law had not been followed.
> This was a decision by a court, not a question of whether the people support their governments
Only in the narrowest sense. It was a decision by a party, not a court. Republicans put their judges in power and the Republican judges made a decision. In that sense the US is absolutely unlike any other democracy in the world.
- TheOtherHobbes 6y agoLaw is what should happen, politics is what does happen. I doubt many in Wisconsin are interested in the constitutional subtleties, just as they're not interested in how the "spontaneous" activism and protests have been coordinated by astroturfing. The bottom line is that this will be marketed as a blow for individual freedom against oppressive government interference, and that marketing frame will be an expedient and manipulative PR position which will result in many avoidable deaths. Worse, it will also do very little to keep the economy running, because the real economic problems are going to happen upstream, and states have virtually no influence over what happens there. (Which on its own should be enough to expose the lie that "individual freedom" as a magic fetish against economic catastrophe is even a possibility in this situation.)
- jacobush 6y agoAdd a short squeeze on the dollar and you have the perfect storm.
- hanging 6y agoexecutive orders can decide what the law means You should tell the SCOTUS that. They overturned 55% of Obama executive directives that reached them, and his administration had the most overturned unanimously (yes, even Ginsberg and Sotomayor) of any Presidency. >>Also, the U.S. Constitution's requirement that State governments be (small-r) republican There is no such requirement Dude. This is literally in Article IV: "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, ..."
- aw1621107 6y ago> Dude. This is literally in Article IV: > "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, ..." Perhaps it’s my imperfect understanding of English here, but to me this reads more like a guarantee to the states that the federal government itself will take the form of a republican government, not that the states themselves must be republics. It’s like a shopkeeper saying “My store shall guarantee to every shopper prices that are no higher than that of a competitor’s.” The guarantee is on the shopkeeper’s part; no obligation is required of the shoppers themselves.