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Supreme Court takes sledgehammer to federal regulatory structure

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Re: Supreme Court takes sledgehammer to federal regulatory structure

#21

Post by JumpCrisscross »

ceejayoz wrote: post #9
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Throw something in there about gerrymandering Can be done through statute. And, I’d argue, is better done there. Independent redistributing commissions? Proportional representation? Expanding the House? Combination thereof? I don’t know if we know the answer; hard coding a solution ex ante seems unnecessarily risky.

> Can be done through statute. And undone through statute, or SCOTUS intervention.

> And undone through statute

This is generally hard. And should be possible for something as intricate as election mechanics.

> or SCOTUS intervention

Oh, I have lots of ideas for Court reform. Worst case, add justices. (Or, my favorite, every Supreme Court case gets a random slate of appellate judges.)

Re: Supreme Court takes sledgehammer to federal regulatory structure

#22

Post by KaiserPro »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #2

Five Constitutional amendments we need: 1. Strike pardon power; 2. First sentence of Article II changed to: “The President shall execute the laws of the United States of America”; 3. Abolish the electoral college; 4. Congress may regulate money in politics; and 5. Congress may create independent agencies with charters of up to 25 years. (President still names and Senate still confirms appointments. But they can be in…

I mean yes, but the bigger issue is that the 14th amendment only survived by one fucking vote.

The supreme court is one vote away from not upholding the constitution.

Re: Supreme Court takes sledgehammer to federal regulatory structure

#23

Post by krunck »

apparent wrote: post #13
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #2

Five Constitutional amendments we need: 1. Strike pardon power; 2. First sentence of Article II changed to: “The President shall execute the laws of the United States of America”; 3. Abolish the electoral college; 4. Congress may regulate money in politics; and 5. Congress may create independent agencies with charters of up to 25 years. (President still names and Senate still confirms appointments. But they can be in…

No chance 3 ever passes, and a wealth tax would require an amendment unless it is "apportioned among the states" or some such thing (and it can't be because wealthy people are concentrated in a handful of states). Editing to add: It would also be a bad idea to abolish the EC because then candidates would only ever campaign in cities. They would completely ignore rural areas, which are financially and culturally diffe…

Who cares about campaigning? It's whats happens after the election that matters: Does the representative represent their constituents? That's not an electoral system issue.

Each eligible voter should get one vote of equal weight to all others. The EC breaks that.

Re: Supreme Court takes sledgehammer to federal regulatory structure

#24

Post by JumpCrisscross »

KaiserPro wrote: post #22
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #2

Five Constitutional amendments we need: 1. Strike pardon power; 2. First sentence of Article II changed to: “The President shall execute the laws of the United States of America”; 3. Abolish the electoral college; 4. Congress may regulate money in politics; and 5. Congress may create independent agencies with charters of up to 25 years. (President still names and Senate still confirms appointments. But they can be in…

I mean yes, but the bigger issue is that the 14th amendment only survived by one fucking vote. The supreme court is one vote away from not upholding the constitution.

> the bigger issue is that the 14th amendment only survived by one fucking vote

We have two corrupt justices. Until a President has the balls to enforce the law, this won’t be a problem solved by changing text on paper.

Re: Supreme Court takes sledgehammer to federal regulatory structure

#25

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

The mental gymnastics that jurists attempt to go through to justify their rulings as "principled" in some sense is just baffling to me. The right railed against "judicial activism" for years, but it is plainly obvious that is what is happening here (overturning precedent after precedent solely based on their current feelings), especially by giving credence to the "unitary executive" theory that obviously makes separation of powers a moot point when taken to its conclusion.

The executive branch, as the one tasked with "faithful execution of the laws", is really the only branch that actually does anything substantial. I mean, yes the Congress passes laws and the SC interprets them, but the only branch that can actually carry out those laws is the executive branch. These rulings by the SC basically say that the President can do whatever he wants because (a) he can't be prosecuted for any official actions, and (b) all regulatory decisions are now solely within his control.

Starting with Citizens United, this crop of SC justices will go down in infamy as some of the worst since Dred Scott. Let's hope we don't need another actual civil war to rectify their buffoonery.

Re: Supreme Court takes sledgehammer to federal regulatory structure

#26

Post by JumpCrisscross »

krunck wrote: post #23
apparent wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No chance 3 ever passes, and a wealth tax would require an amendment unless it is "apportioned among the states" or some such thing (and it can't be because wealthy people are concentrated in a handful of states). Editing to add: It would also be a bad idea to abolish the EC because then candidates would only ever campaign in cities. They would completely ignore rural areas, which are financially and culturally diffe…

Who cares about campaigning? It's whats happens after the election that matters: Does the representative represent their constituents? That's not an electoral system issue. Each eligible voter should get one vote of equal weight to all others. The EC breaks that.

> Who cares about campaigning?

Electeds. Where they campaign signifies who they think they have to convince and compromise with to earn their seat.

Re: Supreme Court takes sledgehammer to federal regulatory structure

#27

Post by Noumenon72 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #2

Five Constitutional amendments we need: 1. Strike pardon power; 2. First sentence of Article II changed to: “The President shall execute the laws of the United States of America”; 3. Abolish the electoral college; 4. Congress may regulate money in politics; and 5. Congress may create independent agencies with charters of up to 25 years. (President still names and Senate still confirms appointments. But they can be in…

It would be better to make the Constitution unamendable than to let people like you get their hands on it. People are just not smart enough to foresee the consequences of their choices, so it's better to stick with choices that at least worked once.

Re: Supreme Court takes sledgehammer to federal regulatory structure

#28

Post by ncallaway »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #2

Five Constitutional amendments we need: 1. Strike pardon power; 2. First sentence of Article II changed to: “The President shall execute the laws of the United States of America”; 3. Abolish the electoral college; 4. Congress may regulate money in politics; and 5. Congress may create independent agencies with charters of up to 25 years. (President still names and Senate still confirms appointments. But they can be in…

I agree with everything, other than the two caveats below:

> Strike pardon power;

I'd go slightly narrower. I think pardons and clemency are a good thing to have in the system. I think we can put reasonable guardrails around it

- Require pardons to be published to a public register to be effective - Allow a 2/3 vote of both chambers of congress to veto a pardon within 90 days - Disallow pardons in the final year of the term - Explicitly affirm that Congress can make bribery and other forms of direct/indirect quid-pro-quos for a pardon illegal

> Congress may create independent agencies with charters of up to 25 years.

I think we should also create room for Congress to create rule-making agencies that exist within the Congressional branch.

Re: Supreme Court takes sledgehammer to federal regulatory structure

#29

Post by superxpro12 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #21
ceejayoz wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can be done through statute. And undone through statute, or SCOTUS intervention.

> And undone through statute This is generally hard. And should be possible for something as intricate as election mechanics. > or SCOTUS intervention Oh, I have lots of ideas for Court reform. Worst case, add justices. (Or, my favorite, every Supreme Court case gets a random slate of appellate judges.)

18 year term limits. Each president gets to pick 3, or something. I forget the specific number.

Any one judge per district. Our House was supposed to scale with the population. IT only makes sense that the courts should too. There should be more than 9 given how large the population is.

Re: Supreme Court takes sledgehammer to federal regulatory structure

#30

Post by jkaplowitz »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #15
jfengel wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Constitutional amendments that can actually be passed:

We haven’t tried in a generation. I could see pardon power and independent agencies getting through recent Congresses. (Between Biden and Trump, the former has been thoroughly abused. And the Congress likes creating independent agencies.)

> We haven't tried in a generation.

Longer than a generation if you include the Congressional stage of the process as part of the attempt - the last time Congress sent an amendment to the states was in 1978.

Yes, an amendment was ratified as recently as 1992, but that amendment was approved by Congress all the way back in 1789 (!) along with ten other amendments which we now know as the Bill of Rights and one additional amendment that has still never been (and probably won't ever be) ratified. The story of why that ended up getting ratified in 1992 is quite interesting, but it has nothing to do with how to get new amendments through Congress these days.

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