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5th Circuit Court Finds SEC Enforcement Unconstitutional [pdf]

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141–150 of 191 posts

Re: 5th Circuit Court Finds SEC Enforcement Unconstitutional [pdf]

#141
post #17

The gist of the decision is that the SEC’s imposition of civil penalties and disgorgement violated defendants’ seventh amendment right to a jury trial. Under the seventh amendment, you have a right to a jury trial for any claim that would have been an action at law in the courts of England at the time of the founding, prior to the merger of law and equity.[1] There is an additional principle that so called “public ri…

Finally, a reason for conservative FDR-hate that I can understand. Seriously, this is not a sarcastic or troll post. I have always been confused about this.

I'm not sure why its confusing. Conservatives have historically proclaimed themselves to be (in their words even if the actions don't always match) in favor of small government, reduced government spending, and the minimal taxation required to keep a small government functioning.

FDR implemented a bunch of large social programs which naturally grow the government, spend more money, and therefore require more tax dollars to fund.

Social programs that redistribute money have long been considered a form of forced charity which many conservatives think is immoral.

Disclaimer: Not taking a side here. In 2022 I don't think we have a "good" political party in the US let alone a perfect one.

Re: 5th Circuit Court Finds SEC Enforcement Unconstitutional [pdf]

#142
post #114
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Yes it s a great system because foundational change requires a super majority of consensus across multiple political lines. Not just a mob showing up with pitch forks demanding the flavor of the week.

That only works if people don't unreasonably deify the system. You have to admit the constitution is deeply flawed in order to be willing to modify it, and, well, if popular opinion is that it is deeply flawed, you won't amend it, you'll just have judges rule without interpreting it strictly.

Politically speaking, it's a terribly flawed document, because it can't change it without a civil war or functionally one party rule, and its written in imprecise language that opens it up to more judicial interpretation than is necessary or constructive.

Re: 5th Circuit Court Finds SEC Enforcement Unconstitutional [pdf]

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you’re a lawyer you should be reading articles by lawyers instead of trying to come up with cockamamie interpretations on your own.

As a lawyer, I disagree. The judicial system depends on the faith of ordinary individuals in it. That means opinions must be written for the public to read, not only other lawyers. My view is that nothing is so complicated that you can’t explain the gist of it to my mother in law (an intellectually curious woman who nonetheless never finished her college degree). In fact if you’re in front of a jury, that’s exactly w…

You explaining the gist of a law and a Hacker News reading the law directly have two very different probabilities of returning a "cockamamie interpretation."

Re: 5th Circuit Court Finds SEC Enforcement Unconstitutional [pdf]

#144
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Processes were included to amend the constitution for this exact reason! Of course the framers knew that it was a flawed document.

[flagged]

Setting Congress aside, you'd then need thirty-eight states to ratify the amendment!

Re: 5th Circuit Court Finds SEC Enforcement Unconstitutional [pdf]

#145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Controversial opinion but I think we should all be reading way more primary sources and way fewer news articles.

Unless you’re a lawyer you should be reading articles by lawyers instead of trying to come up with cockamamie interpretations on your own.

Circuit court and (especially) supreme court decisions are meant to be read. They're fairly accessible.

Even an entirely lay reader will often be much better informed by simply reading the decision than reading some media description of it. The 'spin' of the decision at least has the force of law, while the spin of the media is just clickbait to generate more traffic.

Re: 5th Circuit Court Finds SEC Enforcement Unconstitutional [pdf]

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will be very interesting to see what happens if SCOTUS tries to roll back the administrative state, because this is how Congress wants things to work. They passed all those laws to create the agencies, after all. And the expanding administrative state is what has allowed members of Congress to do less and less actual work, and more and more performance art and fundraising. They barely even have to pass budgets any…

I don't see how this doesn't end with the government basically failing. The modern world is dizzyingly complex, if Congress can't delegate to dedicated agencies how does this all work. Are there 435 people in this nation well versed enough to write detailed regulations on nitty gritty details about Securities on Monday, regulations on Agriculture on Tuesday, rules for calculating acceptable emissions for Coal Fired P…

They can delegate to agencies. The ruling isn't preventing them from doing that, it's just preventing the adjudication of penalties from being carried out by those agencies.

The SEC still gets to make the rules, they just don't also get to impose penalties on their own, without a jury trial.

Re: 5th Circuit Court Finds SEC Enforcement Unconstitutional [pdf]

#147
post #114
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Yes it s a great system because foundational change requires a super majority of consensus across multiple political lines. Not just a mob showing up with pitch forks demanding the flavor of the week.

Rule by the minority. You think that's fair?

Re: 5th Circuit Court Finds SEC Enforcement Unconstitutional [pdf]

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every creature from the New Deal is probably unconstitutional. Additional context on that threat of court packing is that the Supreme Court was already invalidating and gutting the New Deal! Its such an important story to me because my grade school history books all upheld the New Deal as this monumental and amazing thing. From what I can tell, 75% of it (or 75% of the programs it created) was declared unconstitution…

I think implicit in your comment is that the New Deal must not actually be amazing because it turns out that it's likely unconstitutional but... how does that logically follow? It's not like the Constitution was handed down from the heavens as a flawless document. It may be that the New Deal does contain many unconstitutional provisions, but also that that same legislature was in fact a net benefit for Americans.

> It's not like the Constitution was handed down from the heavens as a flawless document.

au contraire, in some opinions

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_civil_religion

Re: 5th Circuit Court Finds SEC Enforcement Unconstitutional [pdf]

#149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will be very interesting to see what happens if SCOTUS tries to roll back the administrative state, because this is how Congress wants things to work. They passed all those laws to create the agencies, after all. And the expanding administrative state is what has allowed members of Congress to do less and less actual work, and more and more performance art and fundraising. They barely even have to pass budgets any…

I don't see how this doesn't end with the government basically failing. The modern world is dizzyingly complex, if Congress can't delegate to dedicated agencies how does this all work. Are there 435 people in this nation well versed enough to write detailed regulations on nitty gritty details about Securities on Monday, regulations on Agriculture on Tuesday, rules for calculating acceptable emissions for Coal Fired P…

There are only 15 cabinet secretaries, each if which heads an executive branch agency. If 15 such can manage and set priorities for such an agency, it should be much easier for 435 people to spread the load and oversee those agencies, including the relevant degree of delegation to agency or independent experts that might be appropriate to a particular issue

Re: 5th Circuit Court Finds SEC Enforcement Unconstitutional [pdf]

#150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will be very interesting to see what happens if SCOTUS tries to roll back the administrative state, because this is how Congress wants things to work. They passed all those laws to create the agencies, after all. And the expanding administrative state is what has allowed members of Congress to do less and less actual work, and more and more performance art and fundraising. They barely even have to pass budgets any…

>It will be very interesting to see what happens if SCOTUS tries to roll back the administrative state... "Interesting" to say the least. Trying to govern a modern nation of 370 million people based on a literal 18th-century interpretation of a Constitution designed to govern a handful of former colonies is going to be a (very predictable) disaster, which is why the Court hasn't done it before.

Appeal to modernity fallacy (I just invented it).

But you’re wrong to argue the “court hasn’t done it”, because the court has been doing it all along. It’s called precedence.

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