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> All Congress needs to do… And therein lies the problem. We know Congress is too deadlocked to be effective. Does the Court pushing back on them have a shot a

by Arubis 4y ago

> All Congress needs to do… And therein lies the problem. We know Congress is too deadlocked to be effective. Does the Court pushing back on them have a shot at getting the legislative branch to do their jobs?

jonstaab 4y ago
Deadlock is the point, less is more, worse is better.
- Arubis 4y ago
  I agree that that appears to be the tactic in use. The Court could choose to act with the knowledge that Legislative won't do things, and so behave as the last bastion of relative non-partisanship across the Federal government by allowing the overall public opinion to influence what cases they choose to hear & their eventual outcomes. That would conflict with the letter description of their job, but arguably be in support of the spirit of the system as a whole. They're not going to go that route, though, it appears.
  - whatshisface 4y ago
    A political supreme court would be a Republican supreme court, presently, meaning this is actually a high point for how happy Democrats should be about textual originalism.
    - krapp 4y ago
      I don't see a lot of Republicans annoyed by anything the Supreme Court is doing - every decision they've made since repealing Roe seems to favor the right and undermine the left. Trump's list for Supreme Court appointees was written by the Federalist society, which is politically biased in favor of Republicans, libertarians and Christian conservatives.
      - whatshisface 4y ago
        The question is whether the precedents established in these cases will be respected and "swing both ways" in practice as they do on paper, or whether the SC will conveniently discover new legal principles to avoid them when, say, the legality of NSA's programs eventually comes up.
briandear 4y ago
Deadlock is a feature not a bug. You want deadlock because one side or another pushing their agenda against the majority is the road to totalitarianism. If there is a deadlock, should one side of another simply dictate? Of course not. If Trump ran the executive branch, would you want him pushing through via administrative fiat things that Congress doesn’t want? I certainly don’t want the EPA making policy — I want them doing what Congress explicitly tasks then to do. Same for other agencies. It’s the Major Questions doctrine. Congress exists for a reason. The executive branch executes the will of the states and people as indicated by Congress. That’s the entire point of Congress.
- zarzavat 4y ago
  There is a difference between a system working as intended, and a system working well. Given that the US constitution is now 230+ years old, we are seeing a huge divergence between the two. The deadlock may be intentional, but it cannot be said that this is a desirable mode of operation when comparing to other countries that have much more effective governance and healthier societies.
  - nostromo 4y ago
    You may claim an old constitution is a problem - I see it as a reason for optimism. The US is the world’s oldest democracy in no small part because of that document.
    - zarzavat 4y ago
      The US is not the world's oldest democracy...
- tcj_phx 4y ago
  Justice Scalia basically agreed with you: gridlock is essential for protecting minority interests. > And I hear Americans saying this nowadays, and there's a lot of it going around. They talk about a "dysfunctional government" because there's disagreement. And the Framers would have said, "Yes, that's exactly the way we set it up. We wanted this to be power contradicting power -- because the main ill that beset us" -- as Hamilton said in The Federalist when he talked about a separate Senate -- He said, "Yes, it seems inconvenient, but inasmuch as the main ill that besets us is an excess of legislation, it won't be so bad." This is 1787 -- he didn't know what an excess of legislation was. > So, unless Americans can appreciate that and learn to love the separation of powers, which means learning to love the gridlock, which the Framers believed would be the main protection of minorities -- the main protection. If a bill is about to pass that really comes down hard on some minority [and] they think it's terribly unfair, it doesn't take much to throw a monkey wrench into this complex system. > So, Americans should appreciate that and they should learn to love the gridlock. It's there for a reason -- so that the legislation that gets out will be good legislation. https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/antoninscaliaamericanexceptionalism.htm https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/antoninscaliaameri... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ggz_gd--UO0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ggz_gd--UO0
nitsky 4y ago
Conservatives love deadlock, it means the federal government does less, and power remains at the local level.
- CPLX 4y ago
  It means power remains at the corporate level.
- citilife 4y ago
  To be fair, the states are effectively countries that have joined a federation (similar to the EU). The power is supposed to be primarily at the local level, the federations primary goal is collective bargaining and protection. Pollution may make sense to regular here, but the states / federation needs to have a large majority agree (>60%). You can't have an unelected group of bureaucrats from the EPA dictating that a large number of states can't make money, for instance.
res0nat0r 4y ago
The entire point was to kick this to Congress, which they know can't pass anything, thus achieving their entire goal of allowing companies to pollute and do whatever they want to make an additional buck.
- DiggyJohnson 4y ago
  I see it more as a fundamental perspective that we need to give Congress a kick, which is might be excruciatingly ineffective right now, but we cannot continue with the expectation that our Federal legislature is too incompetent or disincentivized to do their jobs.
- lolinder 4y ago
  This tendency of people to attribute the worst possible motives to their political opponents is tiring. I live in a deeply conservative state, but I spend most of my online time on HN. This puts me in the middle of two vastly different cultures with vastly different sets of values. I have listened to both sides explain their sincerely held views. I have listened to both sides talk about the other side. Each group will tell me "but those other guys are evil and only want to ____!" Each group then explains their own views, and you know what? Each group's views are rational. Each group's views are compassionate. Both groups really believe that they want what's best for the world, and neither group has thought through their ideas better than the other. Both have severe flaws in their reasoning, but both also really care. In a word: both groups are human. I think it would do us all good to assume that most people are acting out of sincerely held beliefs, and that most people really do want to do good. I know there are exceptions, but the world would be a better place if we didn't treat those exceptions as though they were the rule.
  - res0nat0r 4y ago
    There is absolutely *zero* reason to rule that the EPA, which has existed since the 70's has no authority to regulate the environment. None. I'm attributing the worst to these people, because we know who they are. They want the government to have no ability to at all to put any restrictions on capital at all costs. They're simply doing it now because they have the raw power to do so.
throwaway09223 4y ago
"We know Congress is too deadlocked to be effective." In areas where there's no consensus, sure. Congress is very effective when the parties align. This is government working as intended. Not being able to bulldoze opposition is very different from existential destruction, or "becoming a non-entity" as was written above. The government only taking actions supported by a mandate from the people is an ideal result.
nostromo 4y ago
> We know Congress is too deadlocked to be effective. This just isn't true. Congress continues to pass thousands of laws a year, in line with their historical trends. https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/statistics https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/statistics Congress is only too deadlocked to be effective on issues that the American people are divided on. And that's basically the point of democracy. I'm sorry to say that if you want a different set of laws, then you'll need to do the hard work of talking to other voters and convincing them you're right.

by Arubis 4y ago

jonstaab 4y ago

Deadlock is the point, less is more, worse is better.

Arubis 4y ago
I agree that that appears to be the tactic in use. The Court could choose to act with the knowledge that Legislative won't do things, and so behave as the last bastion of relative non-partisanship across the Federal government by allowing the overall public opinion to influence what cases they choose to hear & their eventual outcomes. That would conflict with the letter description of their job, but arguably be in support of the spirit of the system as a whole. They're not going to go that route, though, it appears.
- whatshisface 4y ago
  A political supreme court would be a Republican supreme court, presently, meaning this is actually a high point for how happy Democrats should be about textual originalism.
  - krapp 4y ago
    I don't see a lot of Republicans annoyed by anything the Supreme Court is doing - every decision they've made since repealing Roe seems to favor the right and undermine the left. Trump's list for Supreme Court appointees was written by the Federalist society, which is politically biased in favor of Republicans, libertarians and Christian conservatives.
    - whatshisface 4y ago
      The question is whether the precedents established in these cases will be respected and "swing both ways" in practice as they do on paper, or whether the SC will conveniently discover new legal principles to avoid them when, say, the legality of NSA's programs eventually comes up.

briandear 4y ago

Deadlock is a feature not a bug. You want deadlock because one side or another pushing their agenda against the majority is the road to totalitarianism. If there is a deadlock, should one side of another simply dictate? Of course not. If Trump ran the executive branch, would you want him pushing through via administrative fiat things that Congress doesn’t want? I certainly don’t want the EPA making policy — I want them doing what Congress explicitly tasks then to do. Same for other agencies. It’s the Major Questions doctrine. Congress exists for a reason. The executive branch executes the will of the states and people as indicated by Congress. That’s the entire point of Congress.

zarzavat 4y ago
There is a difference between a system working as intended, and a system working well. Given that the US constitution is now 230+ years old, we are seeing a huge divergence between the two. The deadlock may be intentional, but it cannot be said that this is a desirable mode of operation when comparing to other countries that have much more effective governance and healthier societies.
- nostromo 4y ago
  You may claim an old constitution is a problem - I see it as a reason for optimism. The US is the world’s oldest democracy in no small part because of that document.
  - zarzavat 4y ago
    The US is not the world's oldest democracy...
tcj_phx 4y ago
Justice Scalia basically agreed with you: gridlock is essential for protecting minority interests. > And I hear Americans saying this nowadays, and there's a lot of it going around. They talk about a "dysfunctional government" because there's disagreement. And the Framers would have said, "Yes, that's exactly the way we set it up. We wanted this to be power contradicting power -- because the main ill that beset us" -- as Hamilton said in The Federalist when he talked about a separate Senate -- He said, "Yes, it seems inconvenient, but inasmuch as the main ill that besets us is an excess of legislation, it won't be so bad." This is 1787 -- he didn't know what an excess of legislation was. > So, unless Americans can appreciate that and learn to love the separation of powers, which means learning to love the gridlock, which the Framers believed would be the main protection of minorities -- the main protection. If a bill is about to pass that really comes down hard on some minority [and] they think it's terribly unfair, it doesn't take much to throw a monkey wrench into this complex system. > So, Americans should appreciate that and they should learn to love the gridlock. It's there for a reason -- so that the legislation that gets out will be good legislation. https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/antoninscaliaamericanexceptionalism.htm https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/antoninscaliaameri... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ggz_gd--UO0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ggz_gd--UO0

nitsky 4y ago

Conservatives love deadlock, it means the federal government does less, and power remains at the local level.

CPLX 4y ago
It means power remains at the corporate level.
citilife 4y ago
To be fair, the states are effectively countries that have joined a federation (similar to the EU). The power is supposed to be primarily at the local level, the federations primary goal is collective bargaining and protection. Pollution may make sense to regular here, but the states / federation needs to have a large majority agree (>60%). You can't have an unelected group of bureaucrats from the EPA dictating that a large number of states can't make money, for instance.

res0nat0r 4y ago

The entire point was to kick this to Congress, which they know can't pass anything, thus achieving their entire goal of allowing companies to pollute and do whatever they want to make an additional buck.

DiggyJohnson 4y ago
I see it more as a fundamental perspective that we need to give Congress a kick, which is might be excruciatingly ineffective right now, but we cannot continue with the expectation that our Federal legislature is too incompetent or disincentivized to do their jobs.
lolinder 4y ago
This tendency of people to attribute the worst possible motives to their political opponents is tiring. I live in a deeply conservative state, but I spend most of my online time on HN. This puts me in the middle of two vastly different cultures with vastly different sets of values. I have listened to both sides explain their sincerely held views. I have listened to both sides talk about the other side. Each group will tell me "but those other guys are evil and only want to ____!" Each group then explains their own views, and you know what? Each group's views are rational. Each group's views are compassionate. Both groups really believe that they want what's best for the world, and neither group has thought through their ideas better than the other. Both have severe flaws in their reasoning, but both also really care. In a word: both groups are human. I think it would do us all good to assume that most people are acting out of sincerely held beliefs, and that most people really do want to do good. I know there are exceptions, but the world would be a better place if we didn't treat those exceptions as though they were the rule.
- res0nat0r 4y ago
  There is absolutely *zero* reason to rule that the EPA, which has existed since the 70's has no authority to regulate the environment. None. I'm attributing the worst to these people, because we know who they are. They want the government to have no ability to at all to put any restrictions on capital at all costs. They're simply doing it now because they have the raw power to do so.

throwaway09223 4y ago

"We know Congress is too deadlocked to be effective." In areas where there's no consensus, sure. Congress is very effective when the parties align. This is government working as intended. Not being able to bulldoze opposition is very different from existential destruction, or "becoming a non-entity" as was written above. The government only taking actions supported by a mandate from the people is an ideal result.

nostromo 4y ago

> We know Congress is too deadlocked to be effective. This just isn't true. Congress continues to pass thousands of laws a year, in line with their historical trends. https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/statistics https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/statistics Congress is only too deadlocked to be effective on issues that the American people are divided on. And that's basically the point of democracy. I'm sorry to say that if you want a different set of laws, then you'll need to do the hard work of talking to other voters and convincing them you're right.