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Comment by thomasahle | Hacker News Reader

I'm trying to understand if the people saying "congress can just fix this" every time the supreme court makes a ruling,

a) Don't agree that congress is blocked and is never going to pass anything.

b) Care more about the legalities than the issues themselves, and so don't really care about whether there is a plausible way through congress.

c) Are making a cry for help for everyone to come together to fix congress. Hoping that if things get bad enough, people will finally wake up and get congress working again.

d) Trust that the supreme court will vote in their favour, and are just concern trolling / trying to distract their political opponents by referring to congress.

Let me know if I missed any other options.

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> trying to understand if the people saying "congress can just fix this" every time the supreme court makes a ruling

Because it's what the current Court is saying. They're pushing back against Chevron's deference to agency rule making.

Congress didn't say a thing, agencies wrote a rule, the courts deferred; SCOTUS is saying that last part was incorrect, the agencies never had the power to write that rule. Congress needed to do it.

The "so..." clause in (B) is irrelevant. Any solution that doesn't pass conditional muster is temporary, at best. Relying on unconstitutional measures to enact the change you want invites unfortunately measures to enact changes you don't like.

The only way to address the issue is to do so legally.

Maybe it should be an "and" instead of "so". At least it sounds like you do believe it is possible to change things legally, as it couldn't be the only way, if it's not a way. So maybe you're on (a)?

I think c is legitimate. Our federal institutions are breaking down due to the public’s mistrust of congress. Its a completely broken institution and both parties are relying on that fact to move toward a more culture war based platform instead of talking about policy, since everyone knows there will be no policy.

My vote is c. Though hopefully things don't get so bad that we just exclude the SCOTUS from the process. IMO that's a possibility if we continue to rely on them to be the effective source of law.

> c) Are making a cry for help for everyone to come together to fix congress. Hoping that if things get bad enough, people will finally wake up and get congress working again.

If we try to rely on the Supreme Court to fix things without fixing congress, the Supreme Court is going to become way more dysfunctional too.

b). The US government is really big and powerful, so it’s more important to me the system is working as it should than any single issue be resolved.

None of the above.

e) stop complaining about the Supreme Court rulings going against their desire, and complain to Congress instead.

You have a subtext in all your options that gates all your options on what (a person thinks) should happen. For example "whether there is a plausible way through congress".

None of your options simply leave that concept entirely out. The reality of a law simply does not care on what you feel the law should be.

I see it all the time people complain "if you rule this way then xyz will happen", which is so completely irrelevant I don't see why they even mention it. A ruling is based on what IS passed not what output you want.

Legislature on the other hand is all about what SHOULD be the result.

Sounds like (b) to me.

I gladly choose option b. The rule of law is a meta-principle, and is much more important than any individual issue. Allowing arbitrary execution of authority in favor of an issue you care about is a recipe for authoritarianism.

It is often:

e.) Want to limit the federal executive branch of government which some believe has grown too powerful.

I was thinking of this as a variant of (d), where you're betting the supreme court will mostly take powers away from the government.

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