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Comment by amendegree | Hacker News Reader

Just to be clear the block was due to a procedural issue and I wouldn’t at all be surprised to see this sorta thing have bipartisan support at the federal level, seeing as it enjoys bipartisan support at the state level in every jurisdiction it is attempted. The main hurdle at the federal level would be getting it out of committee.

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To add some color to the regulatory issue as I understand it, the court ruled that the impact of this rule would be over $100M so they’re required to assess cost/benefits of alternatives and submit them during the public comment period.

I don’t even know what the alternative would be apart from doing nothing. Making it more of a pain for consumers to cancel is zero sum on first order analysis (if I lose a dollar because I can’t cancel the company gets a dollar) but at a second order makes our economy less dynamic by entrenching incumbent companies and making it harder for consumers to allocate their money towards better alternatives.

If a company can trap your money in a labyrinth of process they don’t have to compete on quality or price. Simple as that.

I’m always amazed how willing the courts are to block actions like this on vague technicalities but are then so deferent to police violations of civil liberties where even a violation can still upholds the original judgement against that person and only applies going forward.

The process is broken. If there was an issue with no alternatives being specified, the right time to bring that up was during the public comment period when there weren’t any alternatives. Not after, imo.

I get that process needs to be followed but this is allowing unnecessary gamesmanship.

It was brought up, by the FTC members who voted against it, precisely because it didn’t follow the process. But the democrats had the majority so it passed anyway. And then was immediately sued for failing to follow the process.

You never hear about the millions of perfectly reasonable rulings every year.

The stuff based on vague technicalities that result in something you agree with isn’t memorable, so it’s the vague technicalities you disagree with that’s memorable.

The unreasonable ones seem to be growing at an unusually high rate since January.

Is this based on any sort of statistics, or is it just another media narrative?

This is not a vague technicality, though? The FTC has to obey the law, and the law says that if they make a new rule that has more than $100M of direct monetary impact, they have to use a more involved process. They originally tried to waive this by saying that the rule doesn't have more than $100M impact, but that's just clearly false.

It's not a good thing to cheer rules being broken when you like the reason.

Do lawmakers want a dynamic economy? I guess that would make it harder to keep track of whose “lobbying” checks have cleared.

Orthogonal issue, imo. They can accept bribes from new companies or old ones.

I don't see how it isn't blatant judicial corruption that big business gets special legal considerations because they might not earn as much money.

FTC can still do it without the legislature. They just have to follow a more rigorous process in rule-making.

The FTC under the current administration has zero interest in pushing this forward

When you look at what is happening in Washington, it is disingenuous to say something was blocked because of a procedural issue. It was blocked because the party that controls all three branches of the Federal government didn't want it to pass.

No, it was exactly blocked because of a procedural issue. Despite the fears of many, Trump is not yet a dictator, and the Republican Party is not in total control. Judges rule in ways that they don't like all the time.

This keeps coming up because Trump tries to act like a dictator and just order things to be the way he wants, and it doesn't work that way. There are procedures that the Federal government has to follow; it can't just ignore them and get things done right now. And in fact, the government being forced to follow procedure is a very good thing, even if it's something we want the government to do. It's one of the things standing between where we are and a dictatorship.

More than that, it was a good ruling. Judges not rubberstamping non/lowball estimates rather than the mandating max costing, is toward the public good.

I'm afraid I don't really buy that. The court didn't have to seek out this procedural issue. The rules are complex enough to justify any decision you wish. They simply decided by fiat that this case was worth more than $100 million, and overruled the subject matter experts.

It appears that they make their decision, and then justify it. That may not actually be the case -- but if it isn't, the outcome is indistinguishable.

It's true that they're not always favoring the President. But he is increasingly concentrating his power, and it favors him more and more.

I don't think the court sought it out. I think whoever filed the lawsuit did.

The Party sought it out to put before its activist court. At least one recent Supreme Court ruling (gay wedding website) was issued instead of having the case tossed out for lack of standing. If it had been a discrimination case that went the other way, you can bet your ass they would have done the homework to find there's no "there" there.

> But as the case advanced, [the request in dispute] was referenced by her attorneys when lawyers for the state of Colorado pressed Smith on whether she had sufficient grounds to sue.

> "I was incredibly surprised given the fact that I've been happily married to a woman for the last 15 years," said Stewart, who declined to give his last name for fear of harassment and threats.

> Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser on Friday called the lawsuit a "made up case" because Smith wasn't offering wedding website services when the suit was filed.

https://www.npr.org/2023/07/01/1185632827/web-designer-supre...

No, it was blocked through a procedural issue. Why and how are not the same thing.

Washington DC or Washington State?

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