zeke5123a
1d ago
They would cite Santos precedent and kick the person out of congress (which would be justified)
zeke5123a
2d ago
Umm….republicans have the majority (unless the joke is that some rep are actually Dems)
zeke5123a
2d ago
Trump wouldn’t be blowing his political capital. This stunt would increase his capital. People generally don’t like sit ins. Columbia wasn’t popular.
zeke5123a
2d ago
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Saying congress did X isn’t showing how it’s constitutional. The constitution says the legislative power is vested in congress. Congress cannot therefore vest that power in anyone else. It cannot say you can make the law for example.
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I actually suspect the president destroying the independent agency won’t change that much — most of what the executive does is already controlled by the president. But killing the bureaucracy? That is worthwhile as now you can have real change which might lead to congressional control.
zeke5123a
2d ago
Independent wasn’t about trying to get around non delegation; it was a silly progressive idea of making it non political.
The legislative power is vested in congress. Congress cannot delegate that authority even if the court doesn’t want to go that far (eg congress can’t say “Zeke now gets to write all of the laws”. Independence is largely orthogonal to non delegation concerns.
zeke5123a
2d ago
No this is all rather nonsensical. First, congress delegates to many agencies including non independent. The grants to both are governed by the same law and cover significant activity. Indeed many of the most relevant are not independent agencies though of course some are.
The only real difference between independent and dependent agencies is whether the president can remove people at the agencies at will. That’s it. There aren’t other special rules that those independent agencies have to abide by that dependent agencies do not. They all must abide by the APA. So if the President smashes independent agencies the only difference is who is making the decision; not the process for decision making.
zeke5123a
2d ago
I’d be more comfortable with something like the Reins act where each regulation only goes into effect with an up / down vote by Congress. Ideally, they’d be subject to four year renewals or something like that.
zeke5123a
2d ago
Independent is almost certainly worse.
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The incentives are frequently to grow the power of the agency.
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People who eventually work on policy decision typically believe in the mission in the department and therefore are ideologically predisposed to grow the agency more.
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There are little checks on the agency decision making process. And because people coming up in the agency generally share the same beliefs, there is little hope for change.
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Finally, the bureaucracy is largely chosen from the people in DC. DC is over 90% democrat.
Basically wanting independent agencies is wanting permanent statist democrat rule.
zeke5123a
2d ago
Except that clearly the APA would still apply to the president. The believers of the independent executive need to argue what is different about the president having the power and the answer seems to be “there might be more change in regulations”
zeke5123a
2d ago
I doubt it. The power existed. It was just very hard to oppose. Now, at minimum it can be opposed every four years.
zeke5123a
2d ago
Because we hate the administrative state. It is unconstitutional, unaccountable, stifles growth and productivity, and is very statist / progressive. Admin state delenda est.
zeke5123a
2d ago
It has been a conservative goal for decades to try to shrink the power of the admin state. Yes I guess that increases somewhat the power of the executive but that’s a small price to pay.
zeke5123a
2d ago
You fire off a lot of responses but aren’t reading what I wrote.
You said the president cannot make regulations. That would be a curious claim constitutional but let’s put that to the side because that isn’t what I asked.
I asked “where is the constitutional scheme whereby an independent agency can write regulations.” It doesn’t really exist. So before you complain about the president having illegitimate constitutional power (without making the argument) why not argue why independent agencies have that right.
And I’ve been very anti administrative state for years and years. It wasn’t just a happenstance of “oh Trump is doing something yeah.” So get that bullshit out of here.
zeke5123a
2d ago
And I think soccer is popular largely because it is cheap to play and a lot of people play it; not necessarily because it is inherently interesting. Perhaps soccer could become more popular by getting better.
zeke5123a
2d ago
Why would you assume that the current iteration of soccer is the platonic ideal?
Yes whenever you change something you end up giving up somethings. Soccer right now is terrible. I’m sure creating a bit more action would more than offset …positional jockeying for space which just sounds ph so riveting.
zeke5123a
2d ago
Okay you say the president doesn’t have the power to regulate. Can you show me where in the constitution the SEC has the power to regulate? What branch of the government? Who delegated those powers and are those powers delegable?
zeke5123a
3d ago
This is just completely wrong historically. There is and has been almost no oversight by Congress. The APA was intended to rein in agencies but that didn’t work.
Structurally agencies could quickly make rules and unless the rules were hopelessly inconsistent with the statutory scheme they were blessed by courts. No check there.
If Congress wanted to upend the rule, both houses would need to pass a bill (frequently with a super majority in the Senate) AND the President would need to sign the bill. That represents a lot of veto points. In contrast, agencies didn’t face those veto points. So there has been a massive growth of regulations over the years because that was easier and indeed those administrations became more of law writers compared to the Congress or President.
The courts have finally started to push back against independent agencies and this is another avenue to do so.
zeke5123a
3d ago
No. This is ahistoric and not how agencies acted.
Independent agencies were set up to be free of political oversight because the FDR progressives believed in rule by expert. Note that this isn’t a check on the political power under how separation of powers is thought of (where competing branches can check the excess of the other branch), but instead a power base with very little accountability (ie no one to check it).
By eliminating the independent nature of these bureaucrats, we are actually returning power to the three separate branches horizontally and the two separate powers vertically. So instead of limiting separation of powers this actually strengthens it.
zeke5123a
3d ago
Couldn’t you also just reduce the number of pitchers permitted in a nine inning game? Presumably that would require pitchers to simply be less max effort and also pitch more to contact.
zeke5123a
4d ago
Really? Dylan, Hendrix, The Beatles, etc all touched culture. They molded it and it molded them and what was spit out changed the world. You can’t help when you think of Vietnam thinking of the soundtrack to Vietnam.
Today? There is some small commercial stuff. You see people trying to make statements but it comes off less organic and more “we are supposed to stand for something.”
Who is the soundtrack of the 2020s?
zeke5123a
5d ago
I think the Biden zeitgeist re Russia was unbelievably antagonistic and people seemingly viewed Russia almost akin to Goldstein (when something went “wrong” it was due to Russian misinformation).
I view Trump not as a realignment to a Russian U.S. alliance but more towards a reasonable approach to Russia (yes it is a revanchist power, but it isn’t pure evil either)
zeke5123a
5d ago
What makes a meme funny is in part the truth communicated by it. It is just a form of satire
Also the federal government isn’t judgement proof unless they refuse to waive sovereign immunity
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