[mcmcmc]

Administrative law is the (suboptimal) answer to congressional gridlock, which is the real problem. If Congress is incapable of making new laws, we still need them somehow. Regardless the overturning of Chevron deference makes administrative rules like this more susceptible to challenge. Assuming the telcos have the backbone to do so of course.

[Ajedi32]

Congress passes plenty of laws. 95 so far just since the last election: https://www.congress.gov/public-laws/119th-congress Last congress passed 274. It's really only the controversial stuff that gets gridlocked.

The problem is that our government is now so large and complicated that it's simply no longer possible for Congress to effectively set policy for all of it. (This would be true even if they weren't so polarized.) So instead they just keep delegating more and more power to the executive branch.

The Administrative Procedures Act, Congressional Review Act, and the recent overturning of Chevron are all good checks on executive/agency power here, but I don't think any of them solves the fundamental issue that the executive branch was simply never designed to wield this kind of power. I'm not really sure what the right solution is.

[sdellis]

Two-party politics promotes gridlock. Multi-party systems, as long as they don't have veto players, don't have as much stagnation and do a better job of citizen representation.

[deaux]

Do they? 79% of Australians and 73% of Germans have an unfavorable view of Israel, in Germany's case 49% of all being "very" unfavorable [0]. Don't see much representation of that in their politics. Both very much multi-party systems. Australia's system in particular has aspects that are often held up as one of the best in the world. Even on important other topics, it doesn't seem to reflect things much.

Another example, if you survey basically any multi-party European state such as Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark and so on purely on economic policies, you'll overwhelmingly find people supporting much more progressive taxation and in general more socialist economic policies. I'm talking large majorities. Including nationalization of many institutions and so on. Yet their governments have done the direct opposite for decades. Not very representative.

The better representation you're talking about is very surface level, for everything that matters the outcome is that favored by big capital.

[0] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2026/06/04/most-peop...

[sdellis]

I fear you might be mostly right about global political outcomes favored by big capital. However, both example countries you cited have much stronger social safety nets than the United States. The research shows there is a spectrum, but that multi-party systems generally do create greater citizen representation.

Martin Gilens and Benjamin page published an article that uses data to come to this conclusion about the public's influence on American policy:

"The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence."

Iskander De Bruycker and Marcel Hanegraaff authored a recent study, focusing on the EU, in which they "demonstrate that interest groups with more economic resources are generally more influential, but only if their policy positions are congruent with a public majority." Sorry this one is paywalled. Such is the state of academic publishing. :(

[0] https://archive.org/details/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_th...

[1] European Journal of Political Research , Volume 63 , Issue 1 , February 2024 , pp. 26 - 44 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-6765.12582

[AnthonyMouse]

> If Congress is incapable of making new laws, we still need them somehow.

Do we though? When there is a lack of consensus on what federal law should be, those are exactly the times the federal apparatus should be silent and leave it to the states.

[mcmcmc]

So states can regulate interstate commerce, congressional stock trading, foreign policy, military spending guidelines, federal lands and financial exchanges now?

This is just dodging the question of why can’t Congress do its job.

[AnthonyMouse]

> So states can regulate interstate commerce, congressional stock trading, foreign policy, military spending guidelines, federal lands and financial exchanges now?

Which of these are the things where gridlock is happening? In which administration did Lockheed go poor because no defense budget was passed in the entire term?

And Congressional stock trading is exactly the sort of thing that should be regulated by the states, since the federal members of Congress have an obvious conflict of interest. Meanwhile if California says it's illegal to trade stocks on insider information then US Senators from California who do insider trading should be in an orange jumpsuit.

[tzs]

The US is a large country with a large economy and a very diverse economy. It is probably not feasible for Congress to deal with the low level details of managing all that.