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"Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order

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Re: "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order

#681

Post by petsfed »

groby_b wrote: post #649
roenxi wrote: post #643

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why is this EO being issued? It explains itself in Section 1; pretty much all the above the fold material is on exactly that topic. Trump & friends are taking the interpretation that the US presidential election is a vote on how the executive government is to be run. As an extension of that, they're pulling power away from the unelected bureaucracy back towards the office of president - because a vote can't change…

> because a vote can't change the direction of the executive if parts of it are on autopilot independently of the president. That's only mildly true, and the belief of micromanagers everywhere. Ultimately, you need to set an overall direction and then let people execute within that framework, or you're going to get something that's badly run and slow as molasses. With a nuanced interpretation, this EO even might make…

I think this is a really good explanation of the underlying problem.

The example that is top of mind to me, because it hits pretty close to home, is stuff like the Environmental Protection Act or the Marine Mammal Protection Act. The laws direct designated agencies to come up with rules to accomplish whatever the act is meant to do, but it does not get into specifics, because lawmakers rightly recognized that they are neither environmental scientists, nor economists of the industries those acts regulate. So if an administration says "holding hands and singing Kumbaya in the commissary is sufficient to accomplish the goals of our mandating legislation", and neither the legislature nor the courts are unwilling to call the executive on it, that's the ball game.

Re: "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order

#683

Post by repeekad »

pessimizer wrote: post #676
timoth3y wrote: post #671

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know this sounds corny, but people are the recourse. We are part of the checks and balances. Whether it is as overt as a soldier refusing to follow an illegal order knowing they are risking court marshal, or as clandestine as mid-level bureaucrat slow-walking damaging policies, or people actually voting in local-to-national elections. Democracy is not a passive form of government.

> I know this sounds corny, but people are the recourse. We are part of the checks and balances. By "we" here, it seems you mean bureaucrats. But what if your opinions, as an individual, unelected bureaucrat are bad? I don't care what a mid-level bureaucrat's opinions on what policies are damaging is. He could be a neo-nazi for all I know. Constitutionally, we should go with the opinions of the people who won an elec…

You’re right. But if the guy paid to guard the door is told to start letting gangsters in by management, whistleblowing and civil disobedience become championed by the public rather than condemned, that’s “the people’s” check and balance to power. I don’t think we should legally protect the guard’s right to disobey orders, but we MUST protect the guard’s right to protest publicly.

Re: "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order

#684

Post by yapyap »

pessimizer wrote: post #676
timoth3y wrote: post #671

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know this sounds corny, but people are the recourse. We are part of the checks and balances. Whether it is as overt as a soldier refusing to follow an illegal order knowing they are risking court marshal, or as clandestine as mid-level bureaucrat slow-walking damaging policies, or people actually voting in local-to-national elections. Democracy is not a passive form of government.

> I know this sounds corny, but people are the recourse. We are part of the checks and balances. By "we" here, it seems you mean bureaucrats. But what if your opinions, as an individual, unelected bureaucrat are bad? I don't care what a mid-level bureaucrat's opinions on what policies are damaging is. He could be a neo-nazi for all I know. Constitutionally, we should go with the opinions of the people who won an elec…

… oh boy, if you think that mid level bureaucrat might be a neo-nazi I might have some bad news for you about the highest level bureaucrats currently running your country..

Re: "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order

#686

Post by fach »

sejje wrote: post #663
timoth3y wrote: post #651

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even with a highly sympathetic Supreme Court it is hard to imagine this EO standing. It goes against the foundation of not only US law, but couple of hundred years of international democratic tradition in which allegiance is not to a person, but to the nation itself. US civil servants and military alike swear an oath to support and defend the Constitution not the president or their commander. Illegal orders are not o…

> This EO eliminates the concept of an illegal order since the law would be whatever the executive interprets it to be. Isn't this exactly how it works? They interpret it and that stands unless challenged in court.

The nuance here, based on the EO, is rank file and employees of these agencies must now rely on the sole interpretation of the law by either the president or the AG instead of themselves. These _were_ independent agencies who handled their own interpretation of the law.

If you combine this EO with the Supreme Court immunity decision, there may very well be a situation where a rank and file employee acts illegally based on the president's interpretation of the law. This would create a situation where there is a legal challenge about whether a member of the executive branch should be granted the same immunity privileges as the president since they are an extension of the president. You can imagine where things will head if we end up on the wrong side of this decision.

Re: "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order

#687

Post by avianlyric »

pessimizer wrote: post #676
timoth3y wrote: post #671

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know this sounds corny, but people are the recourse. We are part of the checks and balances. Whether it is as overt as a soldier refusing to follow an illegal order knowing they are risking court marshal, or as clandestine as mid-level bureaucrat slow-walking damaging policies, or people actually voting in local-to-national elections. Democracy is not a passive form of government.

> I know this sounds corny, but people are the recourse. We are part of the checks and balances. By "we" here, it seems you mean bureaucrats. But what if your opinions, as an individual, unelected bureaucrat are bad? I don't care what a mid-level bureaucrat's opinions on what policies are damaging is. He could be a neo-nazi for all I know. Constitutionally, we should go with the opinions of the people who won an elec…

> But what if your opinions, as an individual, unelected bureaucrat are bad?

That’s a slightly silly stance to take. Modern developed countries live and die by the quality of their bureaucracy. Making every bureaucratic role an elected position would be insane.

How on earth would you organise elections for every single DMV employee? Or every single park ranger? Or every single government accountant or secretary? Every single civil servant involved in collecting the data used to drive policy decisions.

To get rid of “unelected bureaucrats” you would basically have to turn every federal role into an elected role. The federal government employees around 3 million people, even if we say that only 10% of them are “real unelected bureaucrats”, that’s still 300,000 elections you would need to hold every X number of years. How on earth would anyone ever manage any of that?

Thats before we get to the insanity which is Musk, the epitome of the “unelected bureaucrat” who seems to be the one leading the charge on many of these “policy decisions”, and publicly lambasting “unelected bureaucrats” as being corrupt and “undemocratic”.

Re: "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order

#688

Post by agent281 »

spacechild1 wrote: post #581
arunabha wrote: post #503

In general, people are going to interpret this EO with their own lens. Unsurprisingly, reasonable people may disagree on the merits of the EO as a whole. However this part of the EO is pretty concerning > 'The President and the Attorney General, subject to the President’s supervision and control, shall provide authoritative interpretations of law for the executive branch' and later > 'No employee of the executive bra…

> setting up the president as the sole power center is an inherently unstable system Only if there is a transition of power. If power stays in the same hands, the system can be very stable - and not in a good way.

Trump is pretty old at this point. Even if he decided to go full dictator, how long does he have? Maybe 5 to 10 years? I don't think it would be quite as "stable" as Putin's Russia.

Re: "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order

#689

Post by refurb »

timoth3y wrote: post #651
arunabha wrote: post #503

In general, people are going to interpret this EO with their own lens. Unsurprisingly, reasonable people may disagree on the merits of the EO as a whole. However this part of the EO is pretty concerning > 'The President and the Attorney General, subject to the President’s supervision and control, shall provide authoritative interpretations of law for the executive branch' and later > 'No employee of the executive bra…

Even with a highly sympathetic Supreme Court it is hard to imagine this EO standing. It goes against the foundation of not only US law, but couple of hundred years of international democratic tradition in which allegiance is not to a person, but to the nation itself. US civil servants and military alike swear an oath to support and defend the Constitution not the president or their commander. Illegal orders are not o…

This EO eliminates the concept of an illegal order since the law would be whatever the executive interprets it to be.

How do you come to that to conclusion, especially in the context of the EO?

This EO doesn't change the Constitution's requirement that the President "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed".

I'm not a lawyer but I would interpret this EO to say "it is the job of the President to execute the laws passed by Congress" and "the President may employ subordinates in that execution", however "these subordinates must still execute based on the President's interpretation, not their own".

The EO has a long section on "independent agencies which operate without Presidential supervision". This is what the EO clarifies.

> This EO eliminates the concept of an illegal order since the law would be whatever the executive interprets it to be.

This isn't true at all. This EO doesn't change the fact that President is held accountable by the judicial branch for following the law.

Re: "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order

#690

Post by mrtesthah »

pessimizer wrote: post #676
timoth3y wrote: post #671

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know this sounds corny, but people are the recourse. We are part of the checks and balances. Whether it is as overt as a soldier refusing to follow an illegal order knowing they are risking court marshal, or as clandestine as mid-level bureaucrat slow-walking damaging policies, or people actually voting in local-to-national elections. Democracy is not a passive form of government.

> I know this sounds corny, but people are the recourse. We are part of the checks and balances. By "we" here, it seems you mean bureaucrats. But what if your opinions, as an individual, unelected bureaucrat are bad? I don't care what a mid-level bureaucrat's opinions on what policies are damaging is. He could be a neo-nazi for all I know. Constitutionally, we should go with the opinions of the people who won an elec…

>Constitutionally, we should go with the opinions of the people who won an election

That’s literally not how the constitution has ever worked.

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