If the lawmakers take issue with the ruling they can issue a mandate to roll it back, no?
And at the core, the problem is that the US' political system unlike everyone else's system does not enforce that the executive has a parliamentary backing. That provides a lot of perverse incentives that historically were only prevented by a basic code of ethics and conduct - but since the Obama days, open obstructionism has become acceptable and a target in itself in politics.
Two wrongs don't make a right. Everyone involved should remember that the US is a federation of fifty states that share sovereignty with the federal government, and that nothing stops the various states from enacting their own noncompete bans in their better-functioning state legislatures. They can even do that in cooperation with other states, in order to accomplish the goal in a harmonious manner; see the Uniform Commercial Code for an example.
I don't see gridlock in Congress as an example of it being fundamentally broken. I see it working as intended, since only few matters have such broad agreement among the people in all fifty states that Congress should decide on it for the whole nation. In fact, the fewer things decided on in that fashion, the better for the country as a whole.
This is actually super interesting in that Article 1. Section 10 suggests this requires Congressional approval.
I'd also that the US is a de jure federation of independently sovereign states, whereas we are a de facto central government with weak provincial governments. States cannot act independently or as a peer to the federal government or with each other, and state sovereignty has been eroded since the ratification of the Constitution.
Debating whether or not Congress or the States should make these laws is purely academic. 250 years of history has shown that the only way for meaningful change to be enacted anywhere is for it to be done everywhere, by Congress, with the support of the Executive, and without a meddling Court to nullify it. If we lived in a country that you're hypothesizing about, we would still be segregated.
The UCC is not an interstate compact in the sense of Article 1 Section 10. They're merely the same code that each state chose to adopt, with no legal ability for any other state to question if one state chooses to deviate from it in part or whole. It absolutely does not require Congressional approval. Interstate compacts are more like treaties that states make with each other.
You're absolutely right that state sovereignty has been steadily eroding, and I posit that this is to everyone's disadvantage. As in your example, just because states' rights were once used to champion the evil cause of slavery then later Jim Crow, does not mean that the whole concept of states' rights is wrong.
Besides, tort and contract laws are historically the primary domain of state law. I don't see why the US Congress has to be the one to define it for everyone.
The evidence suggests otherwise. When states wield their power on rights, it's usually against the interests of their people until the federal government forces them to stop by removing their power to do so. That doesn't mean the federal government is without issue, but it is the entity designed to protect liberties.
I don't think this is a simple case of tort that could or should vary between states. It's about the freedom of individuals to choose who employs them and protecting them from those with power. The existence of this as a state law would only serve to exist in opposition to states that don't, to the detriment of their citizens.
States decriminalizing pot, for one, would be an example of state law trying to broaden liberties that federal law restricts. Or Massachusetts legalizing same-sex marriage long before the US Congress did anything about it. Or even at a smaller level, San Francisco city officials doing so before the state of California did.
There's plenty of examples where a more local decision went in furtherance of liberties than a more distant decision, so I'm not sure where you get the idea that politicians become more enlightened and virtuous the higher up in the federation they go.
> The existence of this as a state law would only serve to exist in opposition to states that don't, to the detriment of their citizens.
I'm not sure I follow. I think it's perfectly fine to let the fifty laboratories of democracy play this out, keeping the locus of control as close to the people as possible. The people of California have shown that the lack of noncompetes doesn't necessarily impede commerce or progress; the people of other states may learn from that and follow, or decide otherwise. And if those states that keep enforcing noncompetes do end up doing poorer for their people, they will change the law, or vote with their feet.
its the equivalent of if the tsa started trying to pat you down before you got in your car. and then saying its okay because congress can just roll it back.