Plan B Forum

This might have even more far-reaching consequences than another Trump presidency.

US depends on rules and regulations. My understanding of the process is that this is what the Federal Register is for. Congress makes a law and passes it on to the executive agency (USEPA for example) who figures out how to make this law work, how to enforce it, how to police it and how to measure compliance. They put these rules and regulations, which amount to the law with flesh on, into the FR and give the public 60 or 90 days to comment. The feds go through the comments and either adopt them into the regs or dismiss them. I've put in my share of comments over the years and sometimes I get "What a great idea and we'll incorporate it!" and sometimes "You''re full of shit and this is why." The great advantage of regulations, like a building code, is that if everyone adheres to them you have a level(ish) playing field when bidding for contracts.

Next Covid the guys at CDC and NIH will say - over to you Congress. You figure this out, you tell us what to do. The country will become unmanageable.

It's received wisdom (I blame Reagan)that government experts are pen pushers and bureaucrats. Having worked for the government at many levels as a federal and state contractor, I can tell you that the numbers of timewasters and idiots at federal level is about the same as I have seen in private business. It's normal to use DMV as an exemplar of government ineptitude. But I can tell you that living in this country for 40 years and registering 10 vehicles in three states I am usually in and out of there with my business completed in 15 minutes.

SCOTUS just upset the known universe. It’s not okay. They are unhinged.

I have not yet had time to study the decision (only to scan the syllabus), but it may not be as dire as all that. I don't think it says government agencies cannot make rules and regs, but only that if there is a dispute as to what the law requires, as implemented in those rules and regs, a court need not give deference to the agency's interpretation in reaching a decision. It takes a very heavy thumb off the scale in determining how the law is applied. My particular line of work these days often involves such disputes, so I'm interested to see how it plays out. I agree it is a major decision and it will change the presumptions in how federal agencies do their jobs, but I don't think it's necessarily going to throw the government into chaos. From a mechanics-of-government perspective, however, my main concern is that powerful corporate interests may now be further encouraged to use friendly judges to overturn administrative policy decisions they simply do not like, rather than using the political processes (like Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and public comment) that are supposed to ensure sound decisions that consider all stakeholders' views.

And on another announcement, the Supremes demonstrate why I flunked out of law school: I cannot understand the judicial mind. According to WAPO, a person charged and found guiltily of obstructing an official proceeding on Jan 6 gets another bite at the apple because "the majority’s finding that prosecutors must show a defendant impaired records, documents or other objects for use in an official proceeding." as WAPO puts it.

So that tells me the Supremes have ruled that chasing all the legislators into hiding in the basement does not impair the proceedings. That tells me I should try to sneak behind the bench when the Supremes are making this kind of announcement and reach under the Chief Justice's robe and give him an atomic wedgie. This would certainly be an assault, but it would not interfere with any official proceeding. The rule seems to state that actual elected human beings are only a trivial part of official proceedings.

snailgate.