Flowersignup
No bio...
User ID: 3556
In my darker moments, I wonder if "decolonization" in practice is somewhat genocidal.
I think this just depends on the specific circumstances and usage of the term really. Many of the colonies controlled by Imperial Japan were so awful that their descendents in China and Korea continue to hold a powerful cultural grudge to this day. And it's easy to understand when they committed atrocities like the hundred man killing contest (the specifics of this event is historically questionable but even Japanese courts generally rule something most likely happened) Their forces were so opposed to the Japanese invaders that China put their civil war aside and worked together to fight back. Decolonizing the areas they had conquered was a liberation.
But in the same way "decolonization" is used by some wacky leftist types who seem to think that the US continuing to exist at all is equivalent to doing the trail of tears over and over again. The native Americans of the 18th and 19th century might not have fared well under American rule back then, but the native Americans of today certainly benefit from our country's wealth and power.
I don't have a time machine or a parallel dimension viewer to see the counterfactual where a native American tribe won and ruled over the land of the US to see what happened. Maybe that tribal America is even wealthier and more powerful, maybe it's worse off. But it doesn't matter, we don't live in that time or alternate reality and the native Americans of today benefit from the country existing. "Decolonizing" makes no sense even from a pro-native perspective, we would be hurting them.
Yeah the exact meaning here is really nuanced in a way that most people struggle with and it's not fully fleshed out yet either. Courts are not completely blind, there is flexibility for basic human reasoning and interpretation built into them but they are also majorly concerned with procedure.
A (highly simplified) way to explain what will happen is that the courts essentially go "Ok Trump show us what steps you've taken to help to facilitate his return and what barriers prevent you from achieving that goal", the Trump admin responds "We've done X, Y, Z, and have A, B, C barriers", the judges use their sense to determine how serious that response is and if they appear to be acting in good intentions to follow the order and rule accordingly.
As an example, let's say someone (idk John) has a restraining order on him for domestic violence and he has a stay away provision of 100 yards from Jane. However unknown to John, him and Jane both shop at the same grocery store. This happens sometimes and the restraining order typically accounts for it. As long as John takes action to leave immediately and not engage (that includes not finishing his shopping/pumping gas/whatever) then normally a judge wouldn't really punish for that, they know mistakes happen.
However let's say the court received legally admissable evidence of phone records where John messaged his friend Joe "Hah, I just saw Jane at the grocery store. I think I'll keep going there and maybe she'll see me and freak". The judge can take that into consideration and say "John, you violated your order. This was not incidental, you knew it would happen and continued to shop there for that reason".
Now not all evidence is so explicit as John admitting to it himself in text. It could be just testimony from Joe, it could be certain weird actions John took like always hanging around the store on the days and times Jane normally went shopping, whatever. Or maybe John didn't leave immediately and even worse went up to Jane to talk, which is now breaching the order with intent. Quite a few people end up violating restraining orders (to them "unfairly") because an accidental encounter was turned into an intentional breach by their choice to not disengage and make distance. Whatever it is, the judges take context into account.
Flowersignup
1d ago
Contingent on the supreme court actually deciding to go for the outlaw thing (which is won't, and probably shouldn't), a court declaring someone an outlaw would be the due process of law.
I think you have completely misunderstood the point. Scott's (somewhat jokey) proposal is for outlaws to be outside the protection of the law, and my point is that this would be incredibly difficult to implement in the American legal system as the protection of law applies to any person and that particular bit does not contain any exception to its removal.
nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
See the reading of this gives an exception for removing life, liberty or property through the due process of law. It doesn't give one for denying equal protection of the laws.
Flowersignup
1d ago
I don't believe it is serious, Scott at least would be definitely aware of how unlikely it is to implement such a change. Still an interesting idea to entertain.
Flowersignup
1d ago
Scott of course shows his true colors again as a rabid partisan, by advocating literally unpersoning his political opponents.
I'm pretty sure it's just dark humor there, nor did Scott ever argue for unpersoning them (unless you think outlaws are unpersons by definition?). Those bits about how we might go about limiting a human's protection under the law are theoritical ideas from me, ideas that I disagree with.
Scott Alexander in his recent links post highlights an interesting idea on how to deal with violation of court orders, make them an outlaw , https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/links-for-april-2025 (Edit: To clarify, this is most likely not a fully serious idea. Scott would understand how difficult it would be to actually implement, I'm just analyzing it as if it were serious and how that would work with US law.)
Related: the Trump administration seems to be refusing to comply with a 9-0 Supreme Court order to bring back a specific deported immigrant. This is obviously terrifying, but superforecaster Peter Wildeford says it is not technically a constitutional crisis yet (X) because there are still some formalities the courts need to go to before they have officially “ordered” Trump to bring back the immigrant, and he won’t have officially “defied” the order until the formalities are complete. This doesn’t make me too much calmer but I guess is good to keep in mind. Related: Nicholas Decker asks when a violation of the Constitution becomes the sort of wolf-at-the-door dictatorship that we are supposed to violently rise up to prevent; people are mad at him but I think you have to either admit that some level of tyranny reaches this level or else just lie down and die. My proposed solution (drawing, of course, on medieval Iceland) is that the Supreme Court should be able to directly enforce its decisions by declaring violators to be “outlaws”; not only do outlaws lose the protection of the law, but anyone who uses force to defend of an outlaw becomes an outlaw themselves. See here for discussion of the pluses and minuses of such a system.
Taking this idea seriously, it's hard to see how it manifests in the US. Assuming no change to the constitution, which is possible but I think unlikely to convince enough citizens to go for such a change, the protection of the law is clearly outlined to any person within our jurisdiction in the 14th amendment.
nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
In theory we could radically reinterpret jurisdiction as being "within the law" and thus said "outlaws" being outside the law would not be in jurisdiction but that is a pretty far stretch. It also makes an interesting logical question, if they're outside of US jurisdiction then are they really defying the courts anymore?
Another possible theory could hinge on a different odd and radical reinterpretation of wording,
nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
A radical interpretation of "life" or "liberty" could include removing the status of personhood from violators, therefore removing them from the "any person" line.
Both of these are incredibly radical. The US system is not fully originalist but even the more broader minded living constitutionalists and textualists tend to take the original intent into some amount of consideration and there isn't really any mention of stripping personhood away. And even then, it's still a stretch that one can take away personhood when our definition of person has little to do with one's involvement in the legal system anyway. I don't think many would contest Shakespeare or Genghis Khan as "people" despite being born and dead before the US even existed. And defining outlaws as outside the law could end up suggesting we can not enforce rules on them either if they decide to do something like steal or murder and just hope a citizen takes action to fix it.
Even more so, it remains to be seen if such a thing would even be necessary. I'm not aware of many cases where a ruled upon contempt of court hasn't been resolved in some sort of favorable manner for the courts (an arrest, a fine, obeying the courts after the order, etc) and the ones where it doesn't happen are people who hide away or flee the country. Declaring someone an outlaw and stripping away their legal protections doesn't really help too much in the police not being able to find them, unless we want the outlaw status to allow police to violate the rights of non-outlaws in their search for outlaws.
And even the most famous examples of court defiance tend to be apocryphal historical information, a misunderstanding of the orders by laymen or a mix of the two. Sometimes political leaders will even mislead about their actions, presenting an appearance of "fighting back" for their base while actually pivoting to another strategy that hasn't been ruled on yet. Actually serious major defiance of court rulings just hasn't really happened and thus the need for an alternative solution seems questionable IMO.
Ok but let's assume that the constitution does get changed. Maybe Scott runs for president on the "Let's change the constitution to make outlaws" platform, and the voters all surge for pro outlaw amendment congressmen and governors, and even the politicians currently on the fence are convinced of this idea. What then? That's already been covered decently in depth by Scott years ago and I don't know if I can add too much for this. I don't have much knowledge about the medieval Icelandic system beyond what I learned from this article. But regardless I think the likelihood of such a change is so low the discussion is purely in the hypothetical at this point.
More likely IMO (although still highly unlikely) would be to adopt the punishment of exile. Why do I think this is relatively more likely? It has history in the Roman legal system and British law systems which are already major inspirations for the American legal system so adopting anything from them is more precedented and that precedent may be more convincing to the population for a new amendment.
See, this is the exact kind of shit I would expect from a smug ideological child, not an experienced civil libertarian. The civil libertarian would have immediately thought of multiple egregious incidents, such as the eviction moratorium or student loans.
Yes I am aware of those, you appear to lack a basic understanding of law to know the details of what happened there. The Biden Admin choose to interpret certain Covid era laws in a specific way, and the Supreme Court struck those particular interpretations down.
Did the Biden admin defy the courts ruling and continue interpreting those rules in that way? Despite his (irresponsible) posturing, he did not. The Biden admin pivoted onto a different narrower set of rules that it believed (or at least claimed to believe, law is not a mind reader) gave such powers from Congress.
The Supreme Court ruling on the Biden admin was not a generalist denial of student loans or eviction moratoriums as a concept, it was them denying the specific interpretations of specific passed laws.
Your failure to understand the complexity of law and the limits of specific rulings does not change anything there. Congress could have passed bills giving that authority, the Biden admin interpretated certain bills as giving that authority, the SC said "no, it's not." and the Biden admin obeyed, pivoting onto a different legally distinct argument.
Again, this strongly predisposes me to think you're college aged at best, and deeply embedded in ideologically progressism. "Well known", because Politico and NYT described him that way last week when you and everyone else heard of him for the first time. If you'd actually been adult enough to be politically minded for longer than your account existed, you'd be expected to be aware that there's a wee bit of friction between the Bush Republicans and the Trump ones.
If you don't know about him, that's on you. I grew up in a family of lawyers and was planning to attend law school myself for a long while before I decided for a better work life balance for my kid. I still am interested in a lot of it, and I'm aware of Wilkinson from way before this. He is well known in the field. Also he's not a Bush era nominee, he was under Reagan. Not the biggest importance but such failure at basic details appears as a great highlight of why you made a mistake in understanding the complex details.
Oh, good, you did eventually, inadvertently, acknowledge that all this furor is over a minor paperwork mixup.
Well tell that to the courts, maybe you'll be the one to convince Roberts and Alito and Thomas and all three Trump nominated justices that it's just a minor paperwork mixup. I'm sure you can find the contact info of a staffer or something somewhere online who will listen to your expert understanding of the law and pass it on.
Or perhaps instead of projecting idealogical capture onto me, you could look inside yourself and go "Do I really understand this better than a 9-0 ruling with six conservative judges, three of whom were appointed by Trump's own first administration?", realize the answer is most likely no and then ask yourself why you're so invested into it that you had thought that was the case at all.
Either Trump managed to pick three secret compromised liberals for the court, had no involvement in his own admin's selection (that's concerning and poor leadership if true, I hope not) or the case is more complex than your layman understanding of law leads you to believe.
Flowersignup
3d ago
I'm a fairly big fan of Lincoln. In the actual civil war, Lincoln suspended Habeas Corpus. That was a very explicit violation of rule of law, and by no means the only one Lincoln committed, and the courts simply let him do as he pleased. How do events like that fit into your conception of the rule of law?
Article 1 section 9 Clause 2. The legal controversy over Lincoln was whether or not the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act was sufficient enough for such a declaration, the ability for them to choose to delegate the specifics was unclear.
How does "Justice Marshal has made his decision, now let him enforce it"?
Most likely an apocryphal quote and you believing it's real shows a pop history understanding of government. Andrew Jackson never actually defied the courts.
This is a very common myth, I understand why you might have thought it was true. But he never actually defied any Supreme Court ruling, nor it is likely he said the famous quote associated with him.
How does "the switch in time that saved Nine"?
John Roberts changing his view is not unconstitutional.
Flowersignup
4d ago
In the hypothetical, I imagine a civil war follows between the loyalists and the traitors.
I don't predict such an event happening anytime soon, the large large majority of fellow Americans are patriotic enough to respect the constitution. And the current inquiry into contempt of court is at present halted until the appeals court can rule on the merits, which will then begin an official investigation. Trump has largely respected the judicial branch so far, including the SC's current temporary block on AEA deportations so it will remain to be seen for the current contempt inquiry and if the Trump admin chooses to comply in the case they are ruled against there and have exhausted their legal options.
Of course de facto people in the country can choose to ignore any words written all they want. I will not dispute that. Likewise a system can not be perfect (nor can be expected to be perfect) and I'm sure people do get away with ignoring the courts sometimes.
But that doesn't change the American values and cultural traditions. Hypothetically if a significant portion of the country wishes to violate the constitution instead of working within the framework to change it (a framework we know exists and can be utilized as it's been done so before multiple times) then they are to be frank, un-American and un-patriotic. They are rebels to the system our founding fathers created and the existing laws and process that have served the country for a few centuries. There is no magic beam of God that will prevent such traitors who wish to cast aside the Constitution, but they will be traitors nevertheless.
I think you could use this explanation to see the difference here.
The DOT can file for an injunction against the MTA (they have not yet done so) and so far at least Hochul and other leaders have said they would follow such an order if granted by the court. Of course we can't see into the future, it's possible that an order is made by the courts and the MTA still refuses but they at least say they won't defy it currently.
So everything currently happening is well within the legal process. The DOT believes it has the ability to terminate an approval in such a manner, and the MTA contests and claims they don't (the MTA believes there the order violates certain federal regulations) and as such they are seeking answers in a court of law.
If you don't understand how the American legal system works, that's fine. Most citizens don't, there's a reason why we have such high standards for practicing as an attorney or judge. It is a very complex system with a long history of various laws, regulations and court rulings. But you should probably accept you don't understand it.
In particular, you're responding to a claim that even the Republican-appointed judges are shaped in their judicial philosophy by the social mileu and ideological influence of Democrats in positions of cultural authority, like the mainstream media, by simply restating that they're Republican-appointed. You're not even engaging with his point!
If someone truly believes that every conservative justice on the Supreme Court has been compromised simply because they rule for Trump to respect judicial authority, then I'm going to go in the opposite direction and say it is them who is likely compromised. Anyone whose idealogy appears to be based around "Trump can not be criticized or pushed back on, even by fellow conservatives lest they are effectively traitors" is a person who lacks a meaningful idealogy.
You're making an argument from authority, and FCfromSSC is saying that the authorities themselves are compromised, or driven by social and ideological incentives and beliefs he disagrees with. He's saying the Pope is the antichrist, and you're quoting him from the first council of the Vatican.
Ok but even if we accept that all the conservative justices who have been conservative for longer than Trump has even been a republican for and some longer than many of us have been alive, it is still a truth of the US that the Supreme Court is granted judicial power to "all Cases, in Law and Equity".
Their authority remains enshrined in the Constitution, and if the argument extends so far to claim that their authority is invalid because they are in one man's opinion "compromised", then it seems to simply be more evidence that it is them who has shifted radically away from classic American values.
He doesn't need a refresher on the constitution any more than a Catholic who doesn't believe in God needs a refresher on ecumenical councils. You're quoting the Bible to an atheist.
You don't need to speak for him, I can look at how words and see what he said. " I do disagree that you or the media or the democratic party get to decide which actions are "clever" and which are illegal, and further I disagree that something is required to happen even if we agree that the action is in fact illegal."
Court rulings are de facto not "the media" or the "the Democratic party", they are the judicial branch. And again it does not matter whether or not one man dislikes their decisions, the Supreme Court is granted their authority under the supreme Law of the Land.
Flowersignup
4d ago
I am more libertarian minded and grew up respecting plenty of conservative figures. My parents were both Reagan voters, they were split in 2008 (Obama was pretty widely popular so it's understandable), and I voted Trump in the first term as he was the Republican candidate against Clinton.
But I am also a person raised on fundamental American values, both my parents are lawyers (while, were, one is retired) and they took pride in it. I was originally going to follow until I decided to have a better work life balance for my kid.
There are lots of very conservative people on the court who are friendly to Trump's goals, but they are also (like many judges) obsessed with the proper procedures and rule of law being followed. The 9-0 ruling didn't happen because all the conservative aligned SC judges hate deportations, it happened because the Trump admin violated the lower court ruling and they are expected to do their due diligence and try to make a wrong situation right. The exact terms of this are yet to be ironed out in the courts, but process matters and the judicial authority should and must be followed for a healthy legal system.
So again I ask you, does it not intrigue you why the "activist courts" aren't blocking most deportations, but only these particular ones?
Flowersignup
4d ago
I do disagree that you or the media or the democratic party get to decide which actions are "clever" and which are illegal, and further I disagree that something is required to happen even if we agree that the action is in fact illegal.
I'm just gonna address this part since you fundamentally misunderstand how the legal system works in the US. The judicial branch are not "the Democratic party" or "the media", they are judges selected through a wide variety of processes (depending on the court and jurisdiction). Often they are appointed by a president who has a respect for their work and shares a similar legal philosophy.
Wilkinson for instance, the judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit was appointed by Reagan. Trump himself in the first administration appointed three of the current 9 SC judges, Alito was under Bush and Thomas was under Dubya.
The supreme court especially are the ones granted power by the constitution under article III
The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;--to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls;--to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction;--to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party;--to Controversies between two or more States;--between a State and Citizens of another State;--between Citizens of different States;--between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.
already pissed off the progressives by spending the Biden administration writing scathing critiques of their utter disregard for the law.
How do you know I didn't? And at what point did a court ever charge the Biden admin with contempt? There were plenty of rulings against them so it's very hard to imagine they're willing to rule against him but not enforce it. More likely you just misunderstood the specifics of the rulings or the response to it by the administration, as most people often do. Law is complex, there's no shame in not understanding the intricacies.
You'd be criticizing at least some of these activist judges for overreach.
And there is a process if you believe you were wrongly ruled against, it's called an appeal. The Trump admin appealed the original case up to the Supreme Court got a 9-0 ruling, and remember many of these SC judges were literally by his first admin. And the judge in question, Wilkinson, who denied that recent appeal is a well known conservative minded Republican aligned judge who was appointed under Reagan and on a short list of SC nominees for Bush.
If these are "activist judges" to you then it seems you've skewed far from the American norms.
You'd be carefully mindful of all the laws and evidence demanding that Garcia must be deported.
There are plenty of legal ways to deport immigrants! Even Garcia had multiple ways the Trump admin could have done it without violating the withholding of removal order, including seeking to get it overturned.
Does it not intrigue you why the "activist courts" aren't blocking most deportations, but only these particular ones?
Flowersignup
4d ago
because you claim to have a costly non-partisan virtue,
Now this may be where we disagree on, because I do not view it as costly at all. The rule of law and obeying the judicial system's rulings are written into the fabric of America since long before any of us were born. Perhaps it is because I had lawyers for parents but this concept was instilled in me since I was a kid.
That's still incredibly flawed to assume reading through my limited postings on a single website make you meaningfully less of a stranger who does not know me or what I believe/have previously done.
This is no excuse to conjure up an imaginary strawman of a conversation partner and make unfounded allegations against them because of the mismatch between reality and strawman.
While I don't know the specifics of this particular part of law, the MTA's entire argument maintains that the transport secretary does not have the legal authority to overturn it, and any injuction could in fact be requested by the department of transportation which they have not done. https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2025/04/07/in-court-at-least-the-feds-are-not-trying-to-stop-congestion-pricing
Lawyers for the U.S. Department of Transportation are not planning to seek an emergency order to halt congestion pricing if the toll keeps going after April 20, the Trump administration's current deadline for Gov. Hochul to end the toll, according to a new court filing.
In a letter to Judge Lewis Liman, who's overseeing the MTA's lawsuit challenging Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy's bid to withdraw federal approval of the toll, MTA attorney Roberta Kaplan said that federal lawyers said they don't plan on asking for an emergency injunction should the deadline come and go.
"The MTA ... specifically asked whether the federal defendants contemplate taking any unilateral action on or after April 20 that might require plaintiffs to seek expedited injunctive relief," Kaplan wrote. "The federal defendants ... did state that, at present, they do not intend to seek preliminary injunctive relief themselves."
The decision not to seek an injunction when the MTA blows past the double secret probation deadline Duffy announced after the agency ignored his original March 20 deadline means that congestion pricing will be sticking around at least through the summer, based on the filing schedule on which the plaintiffs and defendants agreed, according to Kaplan's letter.
Flowersignup
5d ago
Next time if you want something, I recommend you ask for it directly instead of vaguely accusing a stranger you do not know, of things you would have no idea about them, and demanding vague and unspecific "evidence" to prove your unfounded accusations wrong.
Unsurprisingly, there has been nothing said about the flagrant disregard for rule of law by the executive of New York.
Has the actions of New York been ruled against yet in a court of law, and have they continued to keep congestion pricing despite that ruling? That is how these conflicts get legally settled after all.
If so, then Hochul and others should be held in contempt of court. If not then the comparison I assume you're trying to make is not equivalent. From my understanding the relevant lawsuit is still in process
Edit: Better link, not directly to a PDF.
Edit 2: also to add this bit in
While Sec. Duffy has issued threats to NY for noncompliance, and FHWA gave NY an April 20 deadline to turn off the tolls, at the pretrial hearing on Wednesday, counsel for the Federal government indicated that no action is imminent. The plaintiffs in the case made clear there would be “irreparable harm to the MTA, TBTA, and the people of New York if tolling ceased” and that further they don’t intend to turn off the tolling system short of an order from judge directing them to do so.
While it of course remains to be seen in the future, they do not state an intent to disobey the courts. This is par for the course when a legal conflict occurs, disagreements between parties are settled by the judicial branch.
Flowersignup
5d ago
If your standard of evidence was so lax as to take "Just take me trust bro, I believe X and Y", why were you seemingly unwilling to accept it beforehand? You start off accusing me of something with no evidence beyond a lack of, and I quote "a large backlog of posts making this same point at progressives" and only when I point out the absurdity of what you're asking requires me to dox myself and my other accounts did you dial back.
If you want an example where I criticized progressives, I believe Biden's covid era eviction moratorium was a bad thing. While not on the exact level (such a thing was not ruled against yet), Biden had previously suggested he knew it was likely to get struck down and proceeded anyway. He then tried a second plan importantly, it was distinct from the coverage of the original ruling with the same knowledge it was likely to get struck down.
Now in this case procedurally, the rules were followed. A law or policy being implemented that gets struck down (in that case because it is on Congress to pass such laws, not the executive to decide) is par for the course and as long as they obey the courts and cease their actions it's all normal. There is no rule, and can not reasonably be a rule that says "If you think it's >X% that you will be ruled against you can't do a policy but if it's <X% chance you can". But it was still morally incorrect of the Biden admin to do so with the knowledge they were (highly likely at the time and now confirmed to be) overstepping their authority.
I am not claiming that you've never pushed back on left-wing activists or government officials ignoring the courts. I am observing that the material outcome of that pushback was zero accountability in any significant form for the left-wing activists or government officials in question, across a very large number of issues and specific cases. I am entirely willing to accept as much pushback as you and others wish to provide against my side, provided that this pushback is similarly ineffectual. As I said above, frown away.
I can not control the actions of others, especially not in regards to vague and nonspecific events.
But your position seems to be that this time is different, and that this time, something must be done
If there is any particular case where a court ruling was flagrantly ignored by a left leaning administration in modern history, then I shall condemn it to.
To clarify though, an admin changing a process or plan in response to the court to no longer fall under what was ruled against would not count as it would be a different plan and this is standard course of politics. For example when Biden's main student loan forgiveness policies were struck down, he used different existing laws that were not yet ruled on. This worked because the SC did not rule on loan forgiveness in general but on the specific method the Biden admin had tried to use.
This is rather normal in politics, and if the Trump administration wishes to proceed with their goals they are free to find all sorts of clever ways to do it so long as they don't defy the judicial branch.
Flowersignup
5d ago
I am no under obligation to dox myself or other accounts of mine on the internet for the satisfaction of a stranger who believes they can read my mind. If you wish to know my views on anything in particular, ask me. Otherwise I request you to stop assuming things.
Take it up with the courts, there will be plenty of gun rights organizations who like to fight for gun ownership freedom.
Neither of the cases you cited cover such a restriction, and while I said courts are generally not blind they are also not all encompassing. I never said it was right for such a restriction to exist, I'm just curious as to why it's an obstacle for you in particular given you're saying you can not get a gun.
If you want my personal opinion, it shouldn't be a restriction. But until this is taken up in courts and properly ruled on, the analogy does not work because they are not disobeying court orders. And I can not say whether or not it is, only if I personally think it should or should not be, it is the courts who will rule on the actual constitutionality of it.
As for any particular individual (regardless of whether or not such a restriction is allowed under the constitution), I still do find it a red flag if someone doesn't have two other adult humans willing to say they trust them.
There was a discussion last week about the DOT vs MTA case re congestion pricing and there's an interesting new update. DOT attorneys intended to upload a letter to the courts to Judge Liman regarding their expectations for documents added to the administrative record.
Unfortunately it appears they made a mistake and accidentally sent an internal letter meant for Erin Hendrixson, the senior trial attorney at the DOT regarding his apparent request for litigation risk in this case and it is quite revealing.
The three DOT Assistant United States Attorneys internally seem unconvinced that the FHWA (federal highway administration) cancellation by Secretary Duffy is in accordance with law and thus is unlikely to be upheld by the judge.
Here's some choice bits
...
They also highlight an alternative strategy for cancellation since they believe this current one is likely to fail. Instead of termination as a matter of statutory construction, they suggest an attempt at the change-in-position doctrine instead. That method could be a difficult sell too given the above bit about not having much written justification on the matter. The change-in-position doctrine requires a "reasoned explanation" for the decision and must consider "serious reliance issues" of regulated parties and must not be arbitrary or capricious, which would be hard to do with the current lack of written justification for their decision so they'll likely go through the internal decision making process for it first.
It is not possible to perfectly predict the decisions of Judge Liman and the respective agencies, but the internal memo at least suggests the DOT believes it is fighting an uphill battle, one that it is unlikely to win on the current merits. They also haven't sought a preliminary injunction against the MTA yet (explanation here for why the onus is on the DOT)) and the slow response would reflect this internal lack of confidence if they feel they can't reach the bar required for one. Some unrelated legal scholars have also commented on the case suggesting the DOT was unlikely to win and that the fight (if Duffy and Hochul wishes to drag it out) could inevitably end up at the Supreme Court.
Currently at least the MTA seems poised to win the case that this particular attempt was unlawful by the DOT, and in response to this likelyhood it appears the DOT is planning some alternative options it hopes will be more defensible under existing law.
One final note ironically NEPA, the same regulation that ended up with a 4,007 page document (thanks in part to New Jersey's challenges) impeding the implementation of congestion pricing for three years might also kick in with this strategy, forcing a new NEPA analysis by the DOT for termination of the program. Will the villain of the congestion pricing storyline from the early 2020s become its hero in the mid 2020s?
More options
Context Copy link