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Independent agencies are completely accountable to congress. The idea that they are unaccountable is nonsense. They can only ever do things in the bounds of wha

Independent agencies are completely accountable to congress. The idea that they are unaccountable is nonsense. They can only ever do things in the bounds of what congress has said they can do. Congress can change what is allowed at any time. Your proposal is to give congress the authority to write regulations without independent agencies. I got news for you, congress already has that power! They created the agencies because they recognized their limitations when it comes to creating regulations that require technical expertise and/or detailed particulars. Congress can also pass a law nullifying ANY existing agency regulations or, in the extreme, dissolving the agency. If a regulatory agency interprets a law one way, congress can pass a law saying that isn’t what we meant, stop doing that, do it this way instead. This is perfect accountability. If congress can’t do those things, how do you expect them to write effective regulation? What more do you want?

Spivak 3y ago
It might be perfect accountability [1] but under this supreme court it might be found unconstitutional. It's not actually clear whether congress is allowed delegate their power to another branch of government. In fact if you take the constitution in context with the British law it was inspired by it's explicitly prohibited. It's already something that has been legally contentious, overturning it has textualist support, and the textualists justices are also broadly Republican who want a weakened federal government. [1] I mean not really perfect since they have to pass legislation to make those changes and it's easier to block legislation than to pass it. So a minority party in congress with presidential support can (and has) wielded undue legislative power.
- golemotron 3y ago
  > In fact if you take the constitution in context with the British law it was inspired by it's explicitly prohibited. Can you say more about this? It sounds very interesting.
  - Clubber 3y ago
    https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/chevron_deference https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/chevron_deference In Chevron, the Supreme Court set forth a legal test as to when the court should defer to the agency’s answer or interpretation, holding that such judicial deference is appropriate where the agency’s answer was not unreasonable, so long as Congress had not spoken directly to the precise issue at question. This is the SCOTUS ruling that gave administration so much power in 1984, so it's relatively new. The validity of it is currently being heard in: https://cooleypubco.com/2023/05/11/chevron-deference-case-fishing/ https://cooleypubco.com/2023/05/11/chevron-deference-case-fi... I hope it goes away.
- dpierce9 3y ago
  Definitely possible. The FDIC has almost a hundred years under its belt though. That is a lot of precedent. It is strange that textualism or republicanism is associated with small/weak government. That reputation is unearned imo. To wit, the independent agency stuff is about who can do what, not what can be done. It is not, in any way, a meaningful limitation on the powers of the government as a whole, just a change to the distribution of where those powers lie.
golemotron 3y ago
> Your proposal is to give congress the authority to write regulations without independent agencies. I got news for you, congress already has that power! Nope. My proposal is that they must write the regulations or at least vote on them. You should be able to look at every single regulation and know whether your representative voted for it or against it. All regulation should be folded into the law and subject to vote.
- dpierce9 3y ago
  Pick an independent agency and look at their docket. The vast majority of the things are detailed technical minutia, not big things like net neutrality. Each item typically requires detailed knowledge of the law, regulations, and past regulatory actions. There are hundreds of such items a year per agency. Your proposal is to task congress with thousands of detailed decisions requiring deep and detailed knowledge of many areas. There is no way that could work better. Congress turns over every two years. They can’t even authorize spending for the the things they have explicitly spent money on. Even if your congress person voted a specific way on a regulation what would it tell you? They would have thousands of such votes a year without enough information. The votes would quickly become bribe based. An independent agency is simply an entity congress has created and authorized to interpret the details of legislation. Those interpretations are called regulations. They cannot just do whatever they want, there are many constraints. There is a process for making regs (including public comment). The interpretations are reviewable by courts. Congress can also address them. This is definitely not a perfect system and I am sure there are better ones but it seems decent enough.

Spivak 3y ago

It might be perfect accountability [1] but under this supreme court it might be found unconstitutional. It's not actually clear whether congress is allowed delegate their power to another branch of government. In fact if you take the constitution in context with the British law it was inspired by it's explicitly prohibited. It's already something that has been legally contentious, overturning it has textualist support, and the textualists justices are also broadly Republican who want a weakened federal government. [1] I mean not really perfect since they have to pass legislation to make those changes and it's easier to block legislation than to pass it. So a minority party in congress with presidential support can (and has) wielded undue legislative power.

golemotron 3y ago
> In fact if you take the constitution in context with the British law it was inspired by it's explicitly prohibited. Can you say more about this? It sounds very interesting.
- Clubber 3y ago
  https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/chevron_deference https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/chevron_deference In Chevron, the Supreme Court set forth a legal test as to when the court should defer to the agency’s answer or interpretation, holding that such judicial deference is appropriate where the agency’s answer was not unreasonable, so long as Congress had not spoken directly to the precise issue at question. This is the SCOTUS ruling that gave administration so much power in 1984, so it's relatively new. The validity of it is currently being heard in: https://cooleypubco.com/2023/05/11/chevron-deference-case-fishing/ https://cooleypubco.com/2023/05/11/chevron-deference-case-fi... I hope it goes away.
dpierce9 3y ago
Definitely possible. The FDIC has almost a hundred years under its belt though. That is a lot of precedent. It is strange that textualism or republicanism is associated with small/weak government. That reputation is unearned imo. To wit, the independent agency stuff is about who can do what, not what can be done. It is not, in any way, a meaningful limitation on the powers of the government as a whole, just a change to the distribution of where those powers lie.

golemotron 3y ago

> Your proposal is to give congress the authority to write regulations without independent agencies. I got news for you, congress already has that power! Nope. My proposal is that they must write the regulations or at least vote on them. You should be able to look at every single regulation and know whether your representative voted for it or against it. All regulation should be folded into the law and subject to vote.

dpierce9 3y ago
Pick an independent agency and look at their docket. The vast majority of the things are detailed technical minutia, not big things like net neutrality. Each item typically requires detailed knowledge of the law, regulations, and past regulatory actions. There are hundreds of such items a year per agency. Your proposal is to task congress with thousands of detailed decisions requiring deep and detailed knowledge of many areas. There is no way that could work better. Congress turns over every two years. They can’t even authorize spending for the the things they have explicitly spent money on. Even if your congress person voted a specific way on a regulation what would it tell you? They would have thousands of such votes a year without enough information. The votes would quickly become bribe based. An independent agency is simply an entity congress has created and authorized to interpret the details of legislation. Those interpretations are called regulations. They cannot just do whatever they want, there are many constraints. There is a process for making regs (including public comment). The interpretations are reviewable by courts. Congress can also address them. This is definitely not a perfect system and I am sure there are better ones but it seems decent enough.