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Comment by zmgsabst | Hacker News Reader

Right — but there’s a broad question of if Congress can establish special courts. This is being asked about more than labor, including taxes and regulations.

The rise of special administrative courts is arguably denying people their rights to be heard in courts, which while you say benefits average people here, is also harming them when in disputes with the FDA/USDA.

Should we save labor unions at the cost of Big Ag destroying small farmers?

Unfortunately, there’s not a simple solution here. (Though, I’m generally against the rise of the administrative state — so I think special courts are inherently wrong.)

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> Right — but there’s a broad question of if Congress can establish special courts. This is being asked about more than labor, including taxes and regulations.

The issue isn't with Congress establishing special courts – it is establishing these special courts as part of the executive branch instead of as part of the judicial branch.

If Congress was to establish a specialist Article III "United States Labor Relations Court", the constitutional argument being made here by Amazon/SpaceX/etc would not apply. Instead, Congress decided to establish a "National Labor Relations Board", which is not an Article III court, it is an Article I tribunal, [0] and the constitutional question being raised here is about the constitutionality of Article I tribunals.

(I doubt SCOTUS is going to find all Article I tribunals unconstitutional – military courts-martial are an example of an Article I tribunal which SCOTUS is highly unlikely to find to be unconstitutional – but it is plausible they may soon [1] rule against their use in regulatory matters such as labor or securities regulation.)

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_tribunals_in_the_Unite...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEC_v._Jarkesy

Corporations are not the same as People and The Citizens United SCOTUS decision was the most slippery slope there. And if you want to Weather some really serious social strife not seen since the last Gilded age then just go right back to the late 19th century and early 20th and look at Labor History in the US.

I do not see what this has to do with Small Farmers any more that any other business and really if you like depressions then just keep moving more wealth from the Middle Classes and moving the up to the 1-5% richest in the US and you will get that depression to clean/balance that all out there. The US is a consumer economy and the Middle Class in the US is Directly/Indirectly the creation of the Labor Movement in the US and there's no getting around that fact in the history of the US. The US has been in a New Gilded age since the 1980s and that's about ready to begin being turned back towards being more Labor Focused and moving the Tax Burden back onto the Corporations and off of the backs of the Middle Class that are not really Middle Class if one looks at the cost of Living currently!

Big ag also has many advantages in the regular court system. Like simply having more capital.

Of course — and even more advantages in special administrative courts, where even reaching a regular court to assert your rights is so expensive most small farmers can’t afford it and where Big Ag doesn’t have to expend any money at all since their paid-for pol does the fighting using taxpayer funds.

Removing special courts doesn’t solve the disparity; but it does improve the situation for small farmers trying to provide their communities with wholesome foods.

Don’t let perfect be the enemy of better.

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