The problem is that it isn’t a law, it’s a regulation.
On the one hand, the Republicans are definitely playing politics by attacking the ability of agencies to come up with regulations. But on the other, it really is just another example of how various parts of the US government have been ceding or delegating their responsibilities around willy-nilly in ways that weren’t constitutionally intended. Congress hasn’t made a declaration of war since 1942, despite all the wars the US has entered into since then. The Supreme Court was never even intended to decide the constitutionality of laws, that’s something they declared for themselves and everyone’s just gone along with it since then. The debt ceiling limit is just plain incoherent, Congress allocates money so a budget they pass should automatically override previous legislation (like the debt ceiling limit).
I don’t know what the US should do to resolve all this, but it’s getting to be quite the mess.
Setting up a Commission and giving it regulatory power is very much in the power of Congress. The Constitution literally says
Congress shall have the power … To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.
So they are well within their rights to pass a law setting up the FCC to promulgate regulations based on the Telecommunications Act. They are also well within their rights to pass a law recognizing the President’s emergency military power, restraining it, and formalizing the process to declare war with different words. Both of which are things they have done. The FCC didn’t magic this shit out of nowhere, and Iraq and Afghanistan were the result of Congressional votes in favor of an AUMF, as outlined in the War Powers Act.
This idea that shit happens willy-nilly is fucking propaganda meant to normalize it so people don’t think it’s weird when a corrupt politician tries it.
So they are well within their rights to pass a law setting up the FCC to promulgate regulations based on the Telecommunications Act.
The Supreme Court apparently disagreed, both in this specific case and more generally when the Supreme Court overturned the Chevron deference doctrine. The Supreme Court basically said “if an agency is going to make a regulation it needs to be very specifically based on a law that says they can do that.” So they’re saying that Congress is going to have to pass some actual laws about net neutrality before the FCC can make regulations enforcing it. The fact that agencies have been making those regulations without laws backing them up is the problem here.
Iraq and Afghanistan were the result of Congressional votes in favor of an AUMF, as outlined in the War Powers Act.
That happened, sure. I’m saying it shouldn’t have. The US went to war without a declaration of war, which is something that should be made by Congress. By passing generic “the President can bomb whatever he wants to” legislation Congress is shirking a responsibility that’s supposed to be theirs.
If you want to have a government where the President is in charge of deciding when to go to war, go ahead and have one. By setting up a constitution that says that’s how it’s supposed to work. Don’t have a constitution that says “here’s how war is supposed to be declared” and then just go do something else instead of that.
The Supreme Court apparently disagreed, both in this specific case and more generally when the Supreme Court overturned the Chevron deference doctrine.
The SCOTUS disagreed because that’s what their oligarch told them to decide. Not because of any actual legal framework or reasoning involved.
Ahh yes the people who openly take bribes from the wealthy elite ruled that the government can not regulate the wealthy elite. I’m so surprised. Are we listening to the Fox’s opinions on gate to the chicken roost too now?
It’s in plain text for all to see. This isn’t some highly technical debate that this court was the first to see the light on. Chevron was 4 decades old and has supporting decisions from the supreme courts reaching back to st least the 1940’s. But sure, these guys saw something different suddenly. And it had nothing to do with the massive amounts of money they’ve received from billionaires.
And no. Not using the specific words, “declaration of war” doesn’t mean anything. Congress had to pass the AUMF bills the same as a declaration of war. Declaring open war was always a possibility.
I’m not making any statements here about what’s “right” or “good”, I’m just saying what is. The US government is operating in ways not intended by the constitution. At least not clearly intended. If you want to interpret that as me taking a position then it would be that they should fix their constitution. Until they do that then their government will be unstable and unpredictable.
Congress shall have the power … To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.
If they deem the regulatory power of agencies like the FCC to be necessary to carry out something in the entire list of powers I ellipsed; then it is constitutional. And no amount of “fixing” would work as long as we have a captured court ignoring the Constitution, straight up lying about it and about history.
So you’re saying that it’s the courts that are behaving incorrectly according to their role in the constitution? If so, that doesn’t change the underlying point I’m making here.
I’m saying the courts are operating in bad faith and not even trying to hide it. You can’t write your way around someone willing to declare the sky is purple if it profits their friends.
I don’t know what the US should do to resolve all this, but it’s getting to be quite the mess.
it really is just another example of how various parts of the US government have been ceding or delegating their responsibilities around willy-nilly
This is the big one. Congress has been delegating their power to the Executive for decades. Rather than meaningful law, they tell the Executive to make regulations that don’t stand the test of time. Congress needs to pass laws again, instead of delegating large swaths of their power.
I can see it being difficult to keep up with the law-writing given how much more complicated the world is now than when Congress was first established. To keep things working properly there should really be a whole lot more congressmen, Congress hasn’t been expanded in a long time and representation is starting to get pretty wonky as a result.
When you get right down to it, I think the root of the problem is just that the American system of governance is just too old. It was one of the first big democracies so it was built without any prior experience of what worked well and what didn’t, and the patches it’s had since it was established have been too minor and are too difficult to apply for it to keep up with things. But a large swath of the American public have been indoctrinated that American democracy is the “greatest in the world” and that the US constitution is a sacred document, so major changes are nigh on impossible even if American politics wasn’t in such a dysfunctionally divided state.
All in all, I’m glad not to be in their shoes right now. Though my own country (Canada) is having some political problems of its own these days they feel more resolvable than all this.
Expanding Congress won’t solve that. There’s only so many votes they can hold in a year and stuffing bills with ever more information and regulations means less and less time for a Representative or Senator to understand it, which reverts to team politics. We should absolutely expand Congress, but this isn’t a reason. Every well functioning government has non legislators promulgating regulations based off legislative guidance.
Exactly. Maybe the agencies should be joint legislative executive or something but we do need them, because I don’t want Jim fucking Jordan deciding how much lead is safe for baby food, but even worse would be for nobody to decide
The problem is that it isn’t a law, it’s a regulation.
On the one hand, the Republicans are definitely playing politics by attacking the ability of agencies to come up with regulations. But on the other, it really is just another example of how various parts of the US government have been ceding or delegating their responsibilities around willy-nilly in ways that weren’t constitutionally intended. Congress hasn’t made a declaration of war since 1942, despite all the wars the US has entered into since then. The Supreme Court was never even intended to decide the constitutionality of laws, that’s something they declared for themselves and everyone’s just gone along with it since then. The debt ceiling limit is just plain incoherent, Congress allocates money so a budget they pass should automatically override previous legislation (like the debt ceiling limit).
I don’t know what the US should do to resolve all this, but it’s getting to be quite the mess.
Setting up a Commission and giving it regulatory power is very much in the power of Congress. The Constitution literally says
So they are well within their rights to pass a law setting up the FCC to promulgate regulations based on the Telecommunications Act. They are also well within their rights to pass a law recognizing the President’s emergency military power, restraining it, and formalizing the process to declare war with different words. Both of which are things they have done. The FCC didn’t magic this shit out of nowhere, and Iraq and Afghanistan were the result of Congressional votes in favor of an AUMF, as outlined in the War Powers Act.
This idea that shit happens willy-nilly is fucking propaganda meant to normalize it so people don’t think it’s weird when a corrupt politician tries it.
The Supreme Court apparently disagreed, both in this specific case and more generally when the Supreme Court overturned the Chevron deference doctrine. The Supreme Court basically said “if an agency is going to make a regulation it needs to be very specifically based on a law that says they can do that.” So they’re saying that Congress is going to have to pass some actual laws about net neutrality before the FCC can make regulations enforcing it. The fact that agencies have been making those regulations without laws backing them up is the problem here.
That happened, sure. I’m saying it shouldn’t have. The US went to war without a declaration of war, which is something that should be made by Congress. By passing generic “the President can bomb whatever he wants to” legislation Congress is shirking a responsibility that’s supposed to be theirs.
If you want to have a government where the President is in charge of deciding when to go to war, go ahead and have one. By setting up a constitution that says that’s how it’s supposed to work. Don’t have a constitution that says “here’s how war is supposed to be declared” and then just go do something else instead of that.
The SCOTUS disagreed because that’s what their oligarch told them to decide. Not because of any actual legal framework or reasoning involved.
Ahh yes the people who openly take bribes from the wealthy elite ruled that the government can not regulate the wealthy elite. I’m so surprised. Are we listening to the Fox’s opinions on gate to the chicken roost too now?
It’s in plain text for all to see. This isn’t some highly technical debate that this court was the first to see the light on. Chevron was 4 decades old and has supporting decisions from the supreme courts reaching back to st least the 1940’s. But sure, these guys saw something different suddenly. And it had nothing to do with the massive amounts of money they’ve received from billionaires.
And no. Not using the specific words, “declaration of war” doesn’t mean anything. Congress had to pass the AUMF bills the same as a declaration of war. Declaring open war was always a possibility.
I’m not making any statements here about what’s “right” or “good”, I’m just saying what is. The US government is operating in ways not intended by the constitution. At least not clearly intended. If you want to interpret that as me taking a position then it would be that they should fix their constitution. Until they do that then their government will be unstable and unpredictable.
Here’s the section again.
If they deem the regulatory power of agencies like the FCC to be necessary to carry out something in the entire list of powers I ellipsed; then it is constitutional. And no amount of “fixing” would work as long as we have a captured court ignoring the Constitution, straight up lying about it and about history.
So you’re saying that it’s the courts that are behaving incorrectly according to their role in the constitution? If so, that doesn’t change the underlying point I’m making here.
I’m saying the courts are operating in bad faith and not even trying to hide it. You can’t write your way around someone willing to declare the sky is purple if it profits their friends.
We’re saying the same thing. The government is not operating according to how the constitution says it’s supposed to be working.
This is the big one. Congress has been delegating their power to the Executive for decades. Rather than meaningful law, they tell the Executive to make regulations that don’t stand the test of time. Congress needs to pass laws again, instead of delegating large swaths of their power.
I can see it being difficult to keep up with the law-writing given how much more complicated the world is now than when Congress was first established. To keep things working properly there should really be a whole lot more congressmen, Congress hasn’t been expanded in a long time and representation is starting to get pretty wonky as a result.
When you get right down to it, I think the root of the problem is just that the American system of governance is just too old. It was one of the first big democracies so it was built without any prior experience of what worked well and what didn’t, and the patches it’s had since it was established have been too minor and are too difficult to apply for it to keep up with things. But a large swath of the American public have been indoctrinated that American democracy is the “greatest in the world” and that the US constitution is a sacred document, so major changes are nigh on impossible even if American politics wasn’t in such a dysfunctionally divided state.
All in all, I’m glad not to be in their shoes right now. Though my own country (Canada) is having some political problems of its own these days they feel more resolvable than all this.
Expanding Congress won’t solve that. There’s only so many votes they can hold in a year and stuffing bills with ever more information and regulations means less and less time for a Representative or Senator to understand it, which reverts to team politics. We should absolutely expand Congress, but this isn’t a reason. Every well functioning government has non legislators promulgating regulations based off legislative guidance.
Exactly. Maybe the agencies should be joint legislative executive or something but we do need them, because I don’t want Jim fucking Jordan deciding how much lead is safe for baby food, but even worse would be for nobody to decide