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I’m sorry, I don’t understand the mechanism of “absolute judicial supremacy”. The judges are checked and balanced by executive appointment, and legislative con

I’m sorry, I don’t understand the mechanism of “absolute judicial supremacy”. The judges are checked and balanced by executive appointment, and legislative confirmation. They also can be impeached by the legislature. Same as it ever was: perhaps this is no longer sufficient, but surely it is not new? The legislature, setting up this agency as a parallel judiciary/executive that both prosecutes cases and judges them, while also insulated from the presidential oversight, is setting up something accountable only to Congress, and unchecked. The supremacy here which you advocate here semi-explicitly is Congressional supremacy. It could be argued this is better! It is more directly democratic, after all, and it’s probably more like parliamentary systems. But it’s sure not what the US constitution went for in the eighteenth century, nor has anyone amended it since.

woodruffw 3y ago
I meant in statutory matters. You're right that the judicial branch would still be checked in other matters, e.g. appointment and confirmation. I don't deny that the judicial branch has the authority to review these semi-judicial schemes designed by the legislative branch. What I find concerning is the broader conclusion: that the legislative branch may effectively have no regulatory power behind its statutory power, and that all regulatory decisions or adjudications would have to flow through a judicial process instead of the competent agency or department. In effect, this would both gum up the US's regulatory machinery by making legislative acts themselves toothless. That seems pretty bad to me, and not in keeping with the enumerated powers of each branch.
- nvm0n2 3y ago
  [dead]
- sokoloff 3y ago
  Even the enforcement powers that are not held in the judiciary should be vested and exercised in the executive branch, should they not? Meaning the legislative branch should not have both legislative and enforcement powers. I think of the FAA, FDA, and the like as being part of the executive branch, not the legislative. Quick Google seems to back that up (and it matches my model of checks and balances from civics.)
  - SllX 3y ago
    You are correct. The basic breakdown is this: Lawmaking: Congress Law Enforcement: The President and all agencies under him Adjudication and guarantor of due process: Federal Judiciary Regulations often get confused with law, but they’re not law so much as either 1) guidance as to how that agency interprets the laws that Congress passes within their enforcement domain and will be proceeding with how they enforce it or 2) orders issued by the President or his cabinet as to how an agency lower in the hierarchy is to proceed. Where the NLRB is being challenged (as had the FTC and SEC has been recently) is that in addition to authorizing the agencies in question, Congress vested them with some limited amount of adjudication powers related to their enforcement domain which have in turn tried to limit access to Article III judicial review by saying you have to go through their internal court processes first before you can get access to the Federal Judiciary to review the case. If you think that violates separation of powers, Amazon and SpaceX do too. Theoretically handling everything within a single agency might be more efficient, but that’s to the government’s benefit to the detriment of the rights of Amazon and SpaceX to due process and Judicial oversight of the Executive branch.
    - paulryanrogers 3y ago
      Corporations with enough money to buy regulators and legislators probably should not be entitled to any rights. They should only exist and continue to operate at the pleasure of the electorate.
      - SllX 3y ago
        Corporations are a legal proxy for the owners and management; protecting the rights of these people and pooling their resource are essentially a corporation’s raison d’être. They can’t really do that if they don’t receive the same due process protections, and they are under our legal system entitled to those.
    - thfuran 3y ago
      >adjudication powers related to their enforcement domain which have in turn tried to limit access to Article III judicial review by saying you have to go through their internal court processes first before you can get access to the Federal Judiciary to review the case. And does any of these companies include an arbitration clause in any of their contracts?
jltsiren 3y ago
I think the issue is that the Supreme Court has established itself as a parallel legislative branch. It can arbitrarily choose to re-examine the constitutionality of an established thing, and it can also reverse its past opinions. There should be a time limit beyond which the Supreme Court cannot act. If nobody has challenged the constitutionality of something in 10 or 20 years, it should be implicitly constitutional, and no court opinion should be allowed to change that. Similarly, if the Supreme Court has already made a decision, it should not change it unless the relevant laws or the relevant parts of the constitution have changed. The right way of changing the constitutional status of an established practice should be changing the constitution itself.
- cafard 3y ago
  Should its own rulings be as binding? Plessy v. Ferguson was decided in 1896.
  - jltsiren 3y ago
    Of course. The job of the judiciary branch is to establish what the laws actually mean. If people don't like the decisions, the right process is telling the legislative branch to change the laws.
    - Eddy_Viscosity2 3y ago
      The actual process is to appoint new SCOTUS judges and they just re-interpret the meaning to your liking. No legislation required.
      - throw_nbvc1234 3y ago
        Works out well for the legislature too. Plenty of topics to campaign on. Plenty of chance to grandstand on social media, in hearings, in the regular media. Get re-elected while solving no problems. "Half" the population will always vote for you because the alternative is socialist/fascist. It's a version of the lazy google engineer [1] that makes less money but has potential for national fame and maybe some insider trading. If the legislature was getting screwed by this arrangement there would be a lot less deadlock in congress and the power of the judicial branch would be relatively less. And somehow this take is somehow less cynical then yours? What a world we live in. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yD2JaAnMMo0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yD2JaAnMMo0

woodruffw 3y ago

I meant in statutory matters. You're right that the judicial branch would still be checked in other matters, e.g. appointment and confirmation. I don't deny that the judicial branch has the authority to review these semi-judicial schemes designed by the legislative branch. What I find concerning is the broader conclusion: that the legislative branch may effectively have no regulatory power behind its statutory power, and that all regulatory decisions or adjudications would have to flow through a judicial process instead of the competent agency or department. In effect, this would both gum up the US's regulatory machinery by making legislative acts themselves toothless. That seems pretty bad to me, and not in keeping with the enumerated powers of each branch.

nvm0n2 3y ago
[dead]
sokoloff 3y ago
Even the enforcement powers that are not held in the judiciary should be vested and exercised in the executive branch, should they not? Meaning the legislative branch should not have both legislative and enforcement powers. I think of the FAA, FDA, and the like as being part of the executive branch, not the legislative. Quick Google seems to back that up (and it matches my model of checks and balances from civics.)
- SllX 3y ago
  You are correct. The basic breakdown is this: Lawmaking: Congress Law Enforcement: The President and all agencies under him Adjudication and guarantor of due process: Federal Judiciary Regulations often get confused with law, but they’re not law so much as either 1) guidance as to how that agency interprets the laws that Congress passes within their enforcement domain and will be proceeding with how they enforce it or 2) orders issued by the President or his cabinet as to how an agency lower in the hierarchy is to proceed. Where the NLRB is being challenged (as had the FTC and SEC has been recently) is that in addition to authorizing the agencies in question, Congress vested them with some limited amount of adjudication powers related to their enforcement domain which have in turn tried to limit access to Article III judicial review by saying you have to go through their internal court processes first before you can get access to the Federal Judiciary to review the case. If you think that violates separation of powers, Amazon and SpaceX do too. Theoretically handling everything within a single agency might be more efficient, but that’s to the government’s benefit to the detriment of the rights of Amazon and SpaceX to due process and Judicial oversight of the Executive branch.
  - paulryanrogers 3y ago
    Corporations with enough money to buy regulators and legislators probably should not be entitled to any rights. They should only exist and continue to operate at the pleasure of the electorate.
    - SllX 3y ago
      Corporations are a legal proxy for the owners and management; protecting the rights of these people and pooling their resource are essentially a corporation’s raison d’être. They can’t really do that if they don’t receive the same due process protections, and they are under our legal system entitled to those.
  - thfuran 3y ago
    >adjudication powers related to their enforcement domain which have in turn tried to limit access to Article III judicial review by saying you have to go through their internal court processes first before you can get access to the Federal Judiciary to review the case. And does any of these companies include an arbitration clause in any of their contracts?

jltsiren 3y ago

I think the issue is that the Supreme Court has established itself as a parallel legislative branch. It can arbitrarily choose to re-examine the constitutionality of an established thing, and it can also reverse its past opinions. There should be a time limit beyond which the Supreme Court cannot act. If nobody has challenged the constitutionality of something in 10 or 20 years, it should be implicitly constitutional, and no court opinion should be allowed to change that. Similarly, if the Supreme Court has already made a decision, it should not change it unless the relevant laws or the relevant parts of the constitution have changed. The right way of changing the constitutional status of an established practice should be changing the constitution itself.

cafard 3y ago
Should its own rulings be as binding? Plessy v. Ferguson was decided in 1896.
- jltsiren 3y ago
  Of course. The job of the judiciary branch is to establish what the laws actually mean. If people don't like the decisions, the right process is telling the legislative branch to change the laws.
  - Eddy_Viscosity2 3y ago
    The actual process is to appoint new SCOTUS judges and they just re-interpret the meaning to your liking. No legislation required.
    - throw_nbvc1234 3y ago
      Works out well for the legislature too. Plenty of topics to campaign on. Plenty of chance to grandstand on social media, in hearings, in the regular media. Get re-elected while solving no problems. "Half" the population will always vote for you because the alternative is socialist/fascist. It's a version of the lazy google engineer [1] that makes less money but has potential for national fame and maybe some insider trading. If the legislature was getting screwed by this arrangement there would be a lot less deadlock in congress and the power of the judicial branch would be relatively less. And somehow this take is somehow less cynical then yours? What a world we live in. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yD2JaAnMMo0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yD2JaAnMMo0