5 ms·

I guess it's time for congress to actually pass laws (first abortion, and now greenhouse gasses). Going to be a lot of anger about the results this court seaso

• cdot2 4y ago
  The supreme court ruled that abortion is a state issue. Any law passed by congress would be struck down by the same ruling.
  • b112 4y ago
    I upvoted, because I heard the same, and downvoting because of reality (no longer the fed's jurisdiction) is not fair.
  • xpe 4y ago
    On what basis is this claim plausible? In my understanding -- and I've read good chunks of the leaked Dobbs opinion -- the above claim is not true. The Dobbs decision's reasoning is largely based on a lack of clear federal legislation saying that abortion is legal.
    • enragedcacti 4y ago
      you are correct that the dobb's ruling does not restrict federal abortion regulation, but it is an open question of whether this court would overturn federal abortion legislation as not being related strongly enough to interstate commerce. Of course that ruling should cut both ways and eliminate the possibility of a federal ban as well, but as we've seen the majority is willing to overturn precedent both as old as 50 years and as young as 2 years (see Gorsuch dissent on Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta) so its possible they would find the rational to uphold a ban even if they strike down a law mandating access.
  • lotsofpulp 4y ago
    If the US Congress passed an amendment that stated abortion is legal nationwide, then the Supreme Court would not be able to strike it down as that would be the new federal law.
    • rajup 4y ago
      Is a constitutional amendment different than a federal law when it comes to how it’s treated by the SCOTUS?
      • lotsofpulp 4y ago
        Amendments and laws are the same thing, so no. The Constitution can refer to the original laws, or the collection of original laws plus all the new ones. When Congress passes a law, the law (sometimes referred to as the Constitution) gets amended, hence it is also referred to as an amendment. Edit: ignore this comment, my information was incorrect!
        • tristor 4y ago
          This is incorrect, at least in the US. A Constitutional Amendment requires the affirmative consent of 3/4s of the states for ratification, it cannot be done unilaterally by the US Congress. The Federal laws are considered the lesser laws and the Constitution the highest law. There is a big big difference legally in the US between an Amendment and something in the USC
          • lotsofpulp 4y ago
            Thanks, got to learn something new today.
        • bandyaboot 4y ago
          You’re conflating constitutional amendments with amendments to congressional bills. They’re very different things.
      • tristor 4y ago
  • rajup 4y ago
    > The supreme court ruled that abortion is a state issue. Any law passed by congress would be struck down by the same ruling. Is it? Then why am I reading news today about the Democrats wanting to suspend the filibuster for a federal abortion law?
    • zrail 4y ago
      The court ruled in Dobbs that the decision reached in Roe v Wade was improper because there is no right to privacy "deeply rooted" in the Constitution or traditions of the United States, which basically means that if the court sticks with this definition they get to roll back any decisions that they don't like, disregarding two hundred years of precedent. The fundamental problem is that large important social policy decisions have been made as court cases rather than legislation for the past 50 years. If Congress actually made laws that explicitly granted rights to the people then we wouldn't be in this situation, but by passing the buck to the court they can claim that problems have been solved without actually having to get their hands dirty or face their constituents.
    • ausbah 4y ago
      Roe v Wade was the court case giving a federal right to an abortion, that was struck down so it became a state's rights issue bc the federal gov't itself never passed a law guaranteeing the the right to an abortion. one major piece of criticism you'll hear again Democrats is that they have taken too much comfort is court precedent then actually passing laws when they were in power
    • NeonVice 4y ago
      Because they are pandering for votes. They know that the average citizen doesn't know that the law would be deemed unconstitutional based on the most recent ruling.
      • bandyaboot 4y ago
        If you’re talking about the decision overturning Roe, it has literally nothing to do with whether a federal abortion law would be constitutional.
  • whiddershins 4y ago
    No. They ruled it isn't a constitutional right. Therefore it can definitionally be legislated at the State level. Whether it can be legislated at the Federal level is a completely different question.
  • bodhi_mind 4y ago
    That’s not exactly true. Congress can and has passed laws that apply to and override state law. Take minimum wage for example (fair labor standards act of 1938). In your particular example, there are no federal laws so it defaults to the states.
  • delecti 4y ago
    They ruled that there is no constitutional guaranteed right to abortion, and in lieu of any federal legislation the decision defaults to the states. They did not rule that the federal government cannot have a say on abortion.
  • camgunz 4y ago
    Dunno why you're being downvoted. This is the likeliest scenario; passing and ratifying an Amendment codifying Roe is next to impossible.
• willis936 4y ago
  The senate is affirmative action for rural areas. Why do we accept minority rule?
  • gruez 4y ago
    Because it was explicitly created with the goal of preventing majoritarian rule. The majority's interests are represented in the house.
  • deelowe 4y ago
    B/c the US is a union. I live in a rural area. There are plenty of laws that make sense for my area that would be ridiculous in high density cities and vise verse. Here there is no minimum speed limit and I can drive my tractor down the road by attaching an orange triangle. I can drill my own well. I can chop and burn trees on my property. None if thus would make sense in the city.
    • camgunz 4y ago
      What you're describing is pluralism and federalism, not minority rule. Minority rule with your examples would be to force cities to burn their trash because that's what makes sense in rural areas.
  • vorpalhex 4y ago
    Tyranny of the majority. New York City doesn't make rules for Eerie, Indiana. NYC can make rules for NYC.
    • throwaway0a5e 4y ago
      NYC makes the rules for NY state. And the people of Buffalo, Plattsburg, etc, etc, aren't exactly happy with that or benefiting from that. They have more industrial economies than downstate does and they are kneecapped hard by some of downstate's economic policies. States that are economically and politically dominated by a single economic zone are a great examples of why minority contingents need strong veto power.
  • 4y ago
• NeonVice 4y ago
  Abortion is not mentioned in the constitution and therefore each state has the power to legislate it as they see fit. Any federal abortion law would be deemed unconstitutional on that basis.
  • micromacrofoot 4y ago
    The majority of federal law isn't mentioned in the constitution. Come on now.
    • NeonVice 4y ago
      "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people." Abortion regulation powers were not delegated within the US Constitution and therefore those powers go to the states.
      • ausbah 4y ago
        it's not like you can infer other rights at all https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substantive_due_process https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substantive_due_process
    • throwaway0a5e 4y ago
      Stop being obtuse. The majority of federal law exists only because broad interpretations of the few subjects the feds were granted the ability to regulate. If abortion was intertwined with interstate commerce or national defense it would be regulated. Of course there's BS that's just as detached as abortion that gets regulated federally but if those subjects were big ideological issues and got the same scrutiny they likely would not be. It's unfortunate that there isn't a stronger right to bodily autonomy enshrined in the constitution but that's tangential here.
      • bpodgursky 4y ago
        Absent a strict law, congress could just make medicare funding or infrastructure or whatever dependent on abortion access, and every state would fold, just like with the drinking age.
• curiousgal 4y ago
  > Healthier democracy How can anyone say that with a straight face in the presence of the electoral college (heck even the elected representatives don't have a legal obligation to vote for their party's candidate) and most importantly gerrymandering. Your assumption that the people can vote to enact change is simply not true.
• tzs 4y ago
  > [...] but I honestly think it's going to be healthier for democracy overall if congress stop leaning on the courts and bureaucracy to make critical regulations. I don't think that scales. When some group of people is large enough and has enough different things going on it has to delegate regulation making. There is just too much for the top level of management to be directly regulating everything. The larger the entity grows and the more it has going on the more regulation making needs to be delegated. At some point you reach the point where even critical regulation has to be delegated. We passed that point, I think, a long time ago in all the large first world economies.
  • bpodgursky 4y ago
    I agree that we can't ask congress to write the entire federal code, but congress could pass a law which literally says: "It is within the power of the EPA to regulate carbon emissions" and leave the rest to the bureaucrats, and that would have been enough. I don't think that's an unreasonable ask.
• waterproof 4y ago
  It is valuable for gov’t agencies to be able to act broadly on their mandates without needing congress to dictate everything. As the dissent puts it, “A key reason Congress makes broad delegations like Section 111 is so an agency can respond, appropriately and commensurately, to new and big problems.” We can hope that Congress will step up and legislate, but that seems pretty unrealistic to me. I fear that this is just the latest wave of successes by the party that wants our government to be as toothless and inept as possible and already has a stranglehold on Congress for the foreseeable future.