“This Supreme Court Case Could Make Or Break The Biden Presidency.”
Not to downplay this story, but its headline works for just about any case facing SCOTUS post-2016. We really are that deep in rightwing judicial doo-doo. Now, fortunately, there are paths through which we can tunnel out of Crap Mountain – not easy ones, but all plausible.
Short term, they rely on a metaphorical 24/7 conveyor belt of Biden judicial nominees (so far, he’s made a pretty good start), and whatever judicial reforms the preening Sinemanchin will deign to allow through structural reforms framed as “Unpacking the Courts”.
Long term, they rely on voters not throwing purity hissy fits and either sitting out elections (at every level) or wasting their votes on dreamland idiots.
All of these cases are symptoms; we know the underlying disease, and we know the cure. Whether or not we have an informed, active electorate that can be bothered to step away from screentime long enough to participate in the actual hard work of democracy, moving forward, is the real question.
(ETA: Oh, and Justice Breyer needs to resign his ass yesterday.)
As Justice Elena Kagan once wrote, if the conservative justices are correct about the nondelegation doctrine, “then most of government is unconstitutional—dependent as Congress is on the need to give discretion to executive officials to implement its programs.”
That sounds alarming .
It is! The fight over vaccine mandates is also a fight over who decides how the U.S. may react to the pandemic—as well as every other urgent problem facing the nation. Does this responsibility fall to experts in the executive branch whom Congress has tasked with policymaking? Or does it fall to federal judges? Executive officials may not be elected, but they do report to the president, who answers to the people. Federal judges, by contrast, are accountable to no one; they face no elections and have no constituency.
So fine. If they want to show up armed at the Federal Capitol and state capitals, we should start showing up armed at oil rigs and fossil fuel company offices.
They. Need. To. Live. In. Mortal. Fear. Of. Us. Or. Nothing. Changes.
If Congress cannot delegate authority to make day-to-day decisions, then who can do that? Now put a pin in that for a moment. Combine that lack of authority to delegate with the idea of the Unitary Executive. He’s the head of the Executive branch, but if Congress cannot delegate authority, then the only real power becomes the executive, governing through executive order.
Doesn’t the idea of stripping the legislative branch of its ability to delegate start to stink like one huge step toward one-man rule, a fascist dictatorship? Or am I just off my meds this morning?
NC Steve and others said it best, but the elysium that American progressives want, isn’t going to happen in the next 6 years.
Now my doom scrying could be wrong, but we’ll see if progressives are like their kindred to the north, as it relates to denying the conservatives power.
Who knows what will happen but one thing seems clear, all this kind of political bickering has a tendency to turn people off politics. Why bother with that when you have a fantasy dystopian Squid Game to watch?
Congress can. The problem here is that Congress hasn’t. In this case with EPA, no significant legislation in 30 years. It’s all been executive action.
Now, that the Supremes suddenly get heartburn over the constitutionality when it’s a Dem in charge…
But no real question that fundamentally the executive branch, regardless of the party in charge, has been doing unconstitutional overreach for quite some time.
We started down that road in 2010 when Citizens United made it perfectly legal to buy Congress, accelerated when Roberts and Alito revoked the VRA, and went into an uncontrolled runaway when Coney Barrett made the “moderate” CJ Roberts irrelevant. I don’t take much comfort in unpacking the lower courts when anything of major consequence is ultimately decided by The Six.
I haven’t reached the point of @sniffit’s “They. Need. To. Live. In. Mortal. Fear. Of. Us.” doctrine, but I’m having real trouble seeing an easy way out.
I was born in '57. I’ve lived in several states - mostly East coast, mostly south (or on top of) the Mason Dixon line, with short stints in Colorado and Texas. I did not see my first bald eagle in the wild until I was in my late 40’s.
Today, right now, I can drive 45 minutes to the Conowingo dam and see dozens of them fishing the waters below the dam. Absolutely stunning.
