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It was only a matter of time. I have a feeling -- not being a lawyer and not intimately knowing the US Law -- that the whole legal structure of the Federal Gov

It was only a matter of time. I have a feeling -- not being a lawyer and not intimately knowing the US Law -- that the whole legal structure of the Federal Government will soon experience a tremendous shift. Alphabet agencies will stop having any kind of authority that the Judicial Branch never approved of. It will completely shatter everything we know about the feds, from drug regulations (FDA et al), to communications (FCC et al), to stock market (SEC et al), to worker/consumer rights (FTC et al), to immigration (USCIS et al)... There will be a period in the US history where no lawyer will be sure how anything can be relied on anymore because there will be this giant free real estate the Judiciary Branch can make precedents on whenever they want. When congress passed laws to create these alphabet agencies, they thought they're assigning some amount of authority to them to "regulate", and they thoughts these unelected bureaucrats making up laws -- instead of the glacier slow Congress -- will let Congress off the hook. But they didn't realize that the Judicial Branch would ultimately see it as an existential threat to them -- because the authority to "interpret" law belongs to the Judicial Branch and not the Executive Branch -- and thus by doing so, they actually wrote a blank check to the Judicial Branch (ruled by another set of 9 unelected High Priests) to eventually determine all these things for the Congress. It's gonna take the Congress an unprecedented megaproject to take these powers from the Judiciary and exactly define each law as elected Congress sees fit. I hope I'm tremendously wrong, but I'm expecting Armageddon-level legal change to soon follow in this country.

themaninthedark 2y ago
Right but it is not all as bad as it seems. During the pandemic, we saw government agencies mandating all sort of things that seemed very out of scope for the agency. For example the CDC was dictating to landlords that they could not evict anyone: https://www.politifact.com/article/2021/aug/04/cdcs-new-eviction-moratorium-it-legal/ https://www.politifact.com/article/2021/aug/04/cdcs-new-evic... There was no legal basis for this, a very good human one but you can't run a country on what we feel is best at the time. That is how we end up violating human rights.
- falcolas 2y ago
  > There was no legal basis for this I pointed this out in a separate comment, but there is absolutely a legal basis for this. The CDC is the Center for Disease Control (emphasis on control), and so it's absolutely in their mandate to make regulations that prevent the spread of infectious diseases. > you can't run a country on what we feel is best at the time I hate to say it, but this is exactly how the country is run. "What is the best course of action?" "Put us on that course of action." Whether done with laws, orders, regulations, court mandates, etc that's exactly what we do.
  - themaninthedark 2y ago
    The Supreme Court ruled that the CDC exceeded their authority and that it would take an act of Congress to change that: https://www.nlc.org/article/2021/08/27/what-to-know-about-the-ending-of-the-cdc-eviction-moratorium/ https://www.nlc.org/article/2021/08/27/what-to-know-about-th... The current best course of action is how we got the the Interment of the Japanese Americans and Guantanamo Bay
    - falcolas 2y ago
      If SCOTUS made the ruling, then the process worked as intended, even when the Cheveron deference was part of that process. Even when written by congress, not all laws that pass will pass judicial review. > The current best course of action is how we got the the Interment of the Japanese Americans and Guantanamo Bay The best course of action is also how Boar's Head products were recalled. How we decide to fix bridges before they fall. How we keep companies from forming monopolies. How we provide aide to states hit by hurricanes and wildfires. And so on...
  - sickofparadox 2y ago
    CDC is primarily a research and guidance organization that has only once in its history had a say over the process of evictions. To argue that because there is a major disease outbreak, therefore this unrelated government agency gets to decide who lives in a house I own is not only insulting to my intelligence, it is offensive to my sense of liberty.
falcolas 2y ago
I think the change is just going to be the courts utterly tied up with regulation challenges. The FDA, FCC, FAA et.al. can still write regulations on Congress' behalf, but they no longer have the final say, and the courts don't have to abide by their expertise. And so I see the courts filling up with these exact lawsuits that will take years to resolve. This was the status quo - well not quite, a separate decision effectively undid the 5 year limitation on challenging old regulations - but I think that companies are going to be a lot more litigious now than they were (and there's a lot more of them). WRT this specific case, we'll have to see whether the courts issue an injunction to prevent the unlocking regulation to stop taking effect.

themaninthedark 2y ago

Right but it is not all as bad as it seems. During the pandemic, we saw government agencies mandating all sort of things that seemed very out of scope for the agency. For example the CDC was dictating to landlords that they could not evict anyone: https://www.politifact.com/article/2021/aug/04/cdcs-new-eviction-moratorium-it-legal/ https://www.politifact.com/article/2021/aug/04/cdcs-new-evic... There was no legal basis for this, a very good human one but you can't run a country on what we feel is best at the time. That is how we end up violating human rights.

falcolas 2y ago
> There was no legal basis for this I pointed this out in a separate comment, but there is absolutely a legal basis for this. The CDC is the Center for Disease Control (emphasis on control), and so it's absolutely in their mandate to make regulations that prevent the spread of infectious diseases. > you can't run a country on what we feel is best at the time I hate to say it, but this is exactly how the country is run. "What is the best course of action?" "Put us on that course of action." Whether done with laws, orders, regulations, court mandates, etc that's exactly what we do.
- themaninthedark 2y ago
  The Supreme Court ruled that the CDC exceeded their authority and that it would take an act of Congress to change that: https://www.nlc.org/article/2021/08/27/what-to-know-about-the-ending-of-the-cdc-eviction-moratorium/ https://www.nlc.org/article/2021/08/27/what-to-know-about-th... The current best course of action is how we got the the Interment of the Japanese Americans and Guantanamo Bay
  - falcolas 2y ago
    If SCOTUS made the ruling, then the process worked as intended, even when the Cheveron deference was part of that process. Even when written by congress, not all laws that pass will pass judicial review. > The current best course of action is how we got the the Interment of the Japanese Americans and Guantanamo Bay The best course of action is also how Boar's Head products were recalled. How we decide to fix bridges before they fall. How we keep companies from forming monopolies. How we provide aide to states hit by hurricanes and wildfires. And so on...
- sickofparadox 2y ago
  CDC is primarily a research and guidance organization that has only once in its history had a say over the process of evictions. To argue that because there is a major disease outbreak, therefore this unrelated government agency gets to decide who lives in a house I own is not only insulting to my intelligence, it is offensive to my sense of liberty.

falcolas 2y ago

I think the change is just going to be the courts utterly tied up with regulation challenges. The FDA, FCC, FAA et.al. can still write regulations on Congress' behalf, but they no longer have the final say, and the courts don't have to abide by their expertise. And so I see the courts filling up with these exact lawsuits that will take years to resolve. This was the status quo - well not quite, a separate decision effectively undid the 5 year limitation on challenging old regulations - but I think that companies are going to be a lot more litigious now than they were (and there's a lot more of them). WRT this specific case, we'll have to see whether the courts issue an injunction to prevent the unlocking regulation to stop taking effect.