I would love for us to be able to get back to making laws in the US. Executive orders and agency rulings are a bad way to run a "democratic republic"
This is a reasonable implementation of a "democratic republic" as Congress still has oversight.
The FTC ruling on non competes... Great, except that getting rid of that rule doesn't create its complementary law around "rading" (see this about ca law: https://www.flclaw.net/is-poaching-employees-illegal-califor... ).
And yes we have used this structure for a long time, but not to this extent, not as a political football for democratic impasse.
Our elected officials set up a system where a series of agencies under the Executive Branch may create rules, but the elected officials have oversight authority.
If you disagree, you may petition your state government for a constitutional amendment that prohibits this practice and advocate for additional states to join in.
[...]
> If you disagree, you may petition your state government for a constitutional amendment
I think you're misinterpreting what's being said here in order to over-react. I don't think anyone in this thread is saying that executive orders and delegating powers to appointed regulators should be expunged from our system of government. But they should be acknowledged as a necessary evil, and their use minimized when possible, and not allowed to completely replace the legislative process. Whereas you seem to be defending taking those practices to the extreme simply because of historical precedent.
If you can point out how I'm misinterpreting, I'm open to discuss. From what it appears though, we have a disagreement on what we wish to delegate to different branches of government.
> But they should be acknowledged as a necessary evil, and their use minimized when possible
I disagree that executive agency rulemaking is a "necessary evil". Congress can simultaneously be derelict in their duties as a legislative body while having a executive regulatory apparatus that creates rules under their purview.
> Whereas you seem to be defending taking those practices to the extreme simply because of historical precedent.
If not for historical precedent and recognizing the practices we've been utilizing for 4-5 generations of people, what should we prioritize?
The people making the appointments are elected. It is obviously democratic.
The general population can't get together to vote on everything, so we elect representatives to do that job for us. Our representatives can't make rules on minutia, so they appoint regulators. Don't like the regulators? Go talk to your representative.
The opposite is worse: I live in a town that still has old-style town meeting where any resident can show up. It's tyranny of whoever has time to show up and stay up late, because someone will always create an amendment at 11PM to overrule a town-wide vote.
It's one thing to set rules for dumping that protect wildlands, or verify drugs in the medical supply chain aren't toxic.
Deciding the rules of commerce? I'm less than thrilled.
You'd rather have such a decision be at the whims of political showboating and culture wars than what can be proven safe and effective with actual medical testing?
I'd argue that a better use of legislature time would be to find ways to reduce the clout of political beliefs in people appointed to high level positions in the agencies rather than requring the useless fools eleceted to congress getting final say in what the rules are.
Seriously do you think the jewish space laser lady should have any say in sattelites or forest fires? Do you really want the moron that thinks injecting bleach is a viable cure to decide what makes for good medicine? Do you want a fool who think's an ar-15 with a certain set of cosmetics is a scary bad gun, but an ar-15 with hunting stocks isn't the exact same weapon to decide firearm policy?
Those are the people you are suggesting should make the decisions on specifics?
And: if Senate majorities really want to pass something, they can change the filibuster rules – and have, for some topics.
Otherwise, the filibuster is maintained out of tradition, courtesy, and its usefulness as a change-of-control 'debounce' mechanism – as well as providing a convenient excuse for posturing more and doing less, as Congress is wont.
Still, in other eras, Congress was able to move compromise legislation forward. Recently, Congress has been unable to – both parties, no matter the relative control. Any belief that it's only "the other guys" is partisan myside blindness.
That is why Nixon created the EPA so that there would not be a Department of the Environment that was out of the hands of executive power.
Only because Congress allowed it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevron_U.S.A.,_Inc._v._Natura....
Unsurprisingly, Kavanaugh and the rest of the conservatives would prefer this approach be relegated to history. Of course, the areas of particular interest that he cites as examples (securities e.g, finance, communications, and environmental laws) just happen to be those where the two parties could not possibly be further apart in their approaches.
https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/01/supreme-court-likely-to-d...
Try again when US gun laws look more like Japan's -- including an assault weapons ban.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/08/asia/japan-gun-laws-abe-shoot...
The fact remains that the ATF enjoys the ability to unilaterally revise firearm policy well beyond what many find reasonable without a change in law made by Congress.
Congress' process takes too long to adapt to conditions on the ground. The ATF has a focused mandate to study and set policy in this area without waiting for Congress to consider the issue. It might not be perfect and is still subject to political influencing as the makeup of the committee changes based on appointments, but at least something gets done.
Regarding the FCC, there is some prioritization based on the type of traffic served, but it's fairly commonsense in its approach and the committee recognized that a complete lack of regulation wasn't in the public's best interest.
The idea that everything is left to Congress -- or ignored, as the case may be -- creates a situation where good ideas don't develop into meaningful legislation or the bad ones get implemented over the will of the majority.
Again, not only does this not happen in parliamentary systems, it's not possible because the people debating the issue are all on the same side. They all agree on the desired outcome, it's rather a question of how far they want to go.
They had their chance...and failed spectacularly.
This is what happens when the party that doesn't have the White House chooses obstruction and enforces the the Hastert Rule.
They don't typically require supermajorities to pass laws, and those in the minority don't have the means to substantively object to bills they disagree with.
A man can dream.
If such a system was implemented in the US, it would force politicians to more carefully consider their positions -- no confidence votes and a motion to vacate serve the man functional purpose as a stick to get people in line, which might not otherwise be possible if they consistently took unpopular positions.
Nothing in your facile proposal would remedy this. What would fix the problem would be change to the rules so that simple majority could bring legislation to a vote. This does not exist in any functional way.
And we haven’t even touched on the fact that the majority of seats are often controlled by a minority of voters due to gerrymandering and the constitutional structure of the senate.
Glares in the direction of the Freedom Caucus, many of whom should have been expelled from Congress after 1/6
In addition, the shitshow that is the amendment process demonstrates that our representatives have long forgotten how to craft comprehensive legislation that has even a chance of addressing all potential concerns.
Again, if I had a magic wand for a day to fix Congress, I'd dissolve it and reconstitute the chambers as a parliament...but how exactly to do that is an argument for another day.
On a slightly more reasonable note, I’d be happy with just eliminating all state senates nationwide, similar to Nebraska.
Bicameralism is bullshit
This is politics in the modern era.
If the FTC and FCC weren't doing either of these things, they simply wouldn't happen. As soon as a Net Neutrality or non-compete clause ban bill makes it to the senate floor, Republicans will just filibuster it, even though public opinion is overwhelmingly in support of both these measures.
Just because I happen to agree with the actions of the agency in this case is not enough to justify handing legislative power over to bureaucratic agencies that do not have any of the checks and balances that are supposed to exist in our system.
But they do have the same checks and balances. All of these rules are open to judicial review and there is a whole process in place due to the Administrative Procedure Act. In fact there are more rules for these agencies like having public commenting periods after which they're required by law to consider that input when making their rules.
These organizations, which function as part of the executive branch, are still subject to checks and balances from both the legislative and judicial branches. The legislative branch has the power to change the laws that govern what these agencies can or cannot do, and the judicial branch has the power to determine if their actions go against either the laws passed by the legislature or the constitution.
Banning regulatory agencies from doing their job would hamstring our government's ability to regulate anything, which is probably why monied interests like to argue that their very existence is unconstitutional.
Can't expect every single item in the government to get direct democracy, the world would grind to a halt due to the sheer number of decisions needed to be made.