| > It comes down to this: I don't think our system is built to withstand the level of bad-faith bullshit that corporate interests will throw at a justice system trying to overturn every regulation not written in stone by Congress. There's a lot to unpack here. First, I don't understand why you expect corporate interests to work hard to overturn the regulations that they themselves often benefit from, and sometimes themselves advanced via influencing and co-opting regulatory bodies. Second, I don't understand why you think that the judicial process can't sort out bullshit from solid legal reasoning -- that's its entire purpose -- but somehow trust functionaries in opaque bureaucracies to do the same. Finally, I don't understand why you expect that Congress would have anything to do with this. This is about who interprets the statutes that Congress has already passed, understanding that statutes will not contain detailed specifics about every regulatory scenario. Regulatory bodies will continue to do what they do, but will simply no longer be able to expand their authority on their own prerogative without being validated by due process. > Congress writes a law saying "FCC, go guarantee good access to Internet for people" and FCC says "OK, 100mb is the minimum and every ISP should offer that". ISPs are already able to sue and always have been. Courts are still adjudicating every such dispute. Nothing is changing in this regard. > You think an ISP should be able to sue, and a judge should be able to block, an FCC attempt to implement "good access to Internet" as they see fit? Of course they should! And the FCC should then be required to argue why they think the specific actions they are trying to take are consistent with the legislative mandate, with the court giving a fair hearing to the other side, and then making a determination based on their expert application of law, to determine whether the thing that the FCC wants to do is legal, completely irrespectively of whether it is effective policy. I can't wrap my head around why you think this is bad, not even a little bit. > Maybe if we develop a framework for justices to force a legislature to reconsider the question, not to make the final decision themselves, it would be more reasonable. But judges aren't accountable to anyone. No, this entire matter is downstream of legislation. Congress can reconsider any question at any time, and then pass new statutes to adjust the laws. But someone still needs to be responsible for interpreting those new statutes. And that someone is the judiciary. > So maybe an elected subset of the judiciary? Or a "push system" for the house to vote on all the issues that judges find. But not judges making the final call and waiting for the legislature to do something about it. No, that doesn't make any sense. Congress can legislate at a million miles per hour, and pass all manner of detailed statutes, but those statutes still need to be interpreted and adjudicated, and doing so is inherently and constitutionally the role of the judiciary. No structural changes are necessary apart from restoring proper separation of powers and checks and balances, which is exactly what reversing Chevron does. You are trying to solve a nonexistent problem with solutions that are themselves real, worse problems. |
I've lost faith in the court system recently.
You have faith in a court system to only determine questions of legality, not policy. I don't have that. I see our federal courts as political tools, completely unaccountable to the people and whose rulings are never adjusted by the Congress. I wholeheartedly disagree with textualist/originalist readings of the Constitution.
At least a bureaucracy operates at the direction of an elected position, I suppose.
I'll have to think about the discussions here. I still like my idea of Congress being brought back into the loop to be required to respond to judicial decisions overturning regulations, to ensure the agencies can continue doing what they need to do if it is "the will of the people". You kept on saying this stuff is "downstream of Congress". I'm saying to make it a feedback loop so it must get back in front of Congress after judges make a decision.
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EDIT: Oh and SCOTUS just gave the president absolute immunity, and among other things said that judges couldn't look at presidential intent when determining if an act is "official or unofficial conduct" because it would open the president up to endless legislation.
So judicial review is okay when it's talking about fines on boats, but not when it's about a president overturning elections or assassinating political leaders.