What this actually is is a disastrous consequence of the Supreme Court’s decision in INS v. Chadha, one of the worse decisions of the second half of the 20th century. - ThreadSky

joshchafetz.bsky.social • 1 day ago

What this actually is is a disastrous consequence of the Supreme Court’s decision in INS v. Chadha, one of the worse decisions of the second half of the 20th century.

Reposted from The Fact Of Other Minds Stan Acct

Oh but I forget, Trump can just veto the resolution that cancels the national emergency. That seems like a mistake in the design of the national emergency act lol.

Comments

chris-mas.bsky.social•1 day ago

Sheesh. SCOTUS has had too many "well technically" decisions that have caused a lot of damage. I know it's become a stupidly huge political football, but it seems like it would help to expand SCOTUS to 13 justices to reduce risk that decisions aren't the result of a majority going "well technically"

jtunes6.bsky.social•1 day ago

Well, we now have "the president can break laws because the executive needs the power to do 'bold' and 'unpopular' things" (paraphrasing the Roberts majority opinion on presidential immunity). So we are *really* screwed now. 🤦🏼‍♂️

brigadierslog.bsky.social•1 day ago

To be fair the Supreme Court has already made enough bad/worse decisions to make a pretty impressive highlights reel

themadstatist.bsky.social•1 day ago

Question: why can't congressional Democrats file to overturn statutes that hand Congressional authority to the President? Like with tariffs. I mean, the president and Congress couldn't write to pass a law that gives executive authority to Congress so why does it work in reverse? It seems patently

themadstatist.bsky.social•1 day ago

unconstitutional. If that's not possible for whatever crazy reason… Why can't they file a lawsuit to challenge his implementation? I doubt the statute(s) gives him the authority to do whatever he wants, like unilaterally imposing tariffs on every single country on the planet just because.

themadstatist.bsky.social•1 day ago

*couldn't write and pass a law that...

kipcat.bsky.social•1 day ago

President would just veto the bill

themadstatist.bsky.social•1 day ago

Which is part of my point why you shouldn't need a law passed to reclaim inherit congressional power. That's also why I asked about settling that in court. It just seems patently unconstitutional that Congress would have to ask for its power back, with the possibility that could be vetoed. It seems

themadstatist.bsky.social•1 day ago

*inherent...

themadstatist.bsky.social•1 day ago

As structured, that would be inherently unconstitutional because it would make reclaiming the power almost impossible. I still don't understand how Congress can actually give away its authority.

landisr.bsky.social•1 day ago

Chadha happened while I was in grad school. Haven’t heard about it in years. Now it is about to bite us in the butt.

johncastiglione.bsky.social•1 day ago

Chadha was not great but that's a little much. There are many, many bad faith and more harmful decisions. It's at least sensible.

joshchafetz.bsky.social•1 day ago

Think about the current lawlessness, and think about the statutory schemes that Chadha wrecked: the Impoundment Control Act *and* the National Emergencies Act, among others. Both seem ... important at the moment.

kipcat.bsky.social•1 day ago

I've been inveighing against Chadha for ages: the dissents were right and the majority was just wrong too, as the single house order procedure isn't discussed anywhere in the constitution and therefore isn't prohibited.

kipcat.bsky.social•1 day ago

But according to judges appointed by presidents, Congress is almost advisory. It can't stop him from spending; it can't make him spend; it can't remove him (since anyone elected will also have 1/3rd of senators).

kipcat.bsky.social•1 day ago

It can't exercise real oversight; it can subpoena but can't enforce contempt for ignoring it. It can't prosecute anyone; and now the people it wants to prosecute all have "immunity" anyway!

johncastiglione.bsky.social•1 day ago

All of this is of course correct, and while I think ON BALANCE Chadha was wrong, I do not think it was ILLOGICAL or clearly destabilizing to checks and balances to say that the Const. doesn't permit one house to do stuff that isn't enumerated (i.e. one house gets advice and consent, etc.).

johncastiglione.bsky.social•1 day ago

I'm only one cup in so far so I'm pedantically suggesting it's not among the worse of the second half of the 20th; I'm also not sure that even a 1 house veto would stop our current slide.

I do like that you carved out the 2000-25 period which has at least 15-20 clearly worse decisions already

johncastiglione.bsky.social•1 day ago

FWIW I think the worse decisions on campaign finance, public corruption, voter rights, etc. have hastened the ideological degeneration of congress to such an extent that, to me, there's not good reason to believe a house of Congress controlled by same party as Pres would meaningful use those powers

johncastiglione.bsky.social•1 day ago

And certainly now, after Trump v. US., that any president who really wanted to would respect a congressional vote on something like impoundment, or an emergency declaration. But opinions can differ I suppose

timmis.bsky.social•1 day ago

Am I missing something, or could you get around Chadha by requiring just Congressional declaration of emergency prior to any emergency powers being available? Chadha was definitely overbroad, but the basic idea that a single chamber shouldn’t be able to overrule an agency action seems sound

johnlk.bsky.social•1 day ago

It would be both chambers overruling a presidential action that is itself the president acting on Congress's constitutional authority which it has delegated to the president.

timmis.bsky.social•1 day ago

But there is no actual delegation of emergency powers in that case. The delegation thereof would require an affirmative act of Congress, and you could probably require it to be limited too.

johnlk.bsky.social•1 day ago

I was just responding to the last point about a single chamber.

"Congress has to invoke emergency powers" wasn't done because the whole point of emergency powers is for the executive to be able to invoke them quickly.

johnlk.bsky.social•1 day ago

We should probably have a constitutional amendment to make emergency powers work as they were supposed to under the original version of the NEA -- president can invoke, but Congress can rescind by simple majority without the president's approval.

joshchafetz.bsky.social•1 day ago

The National Emergencies Act was actually quite sensibly written. Then the Court fucked everything up in the name of limiting congressional power, and the relatively toothless version of the NEA is what we were left with.

andysabl.bsky.social•1 day ago

So just to confirm: people saying that the House could end the Canada tariffs with a vote to match the Senate’s are just wrong? Given the Supreme Court decision, there’d have to be a regular law passed (over Trump’s veto)?

mattgraham.bsky.social•1 day ago

Even so, make him veto it

octaviuz.bsky.social•1 day ago

Of course, as many people smarter than me have said about Senator Booker, symbols matter

joshchafetz.bsky.social•1 day ago

Yes.

andysabl.bsky.social•1 day ago

Damn. But thanks.

joshchafetz.bsky.social•1 day ago

This is a repeat of the fight over the border wall in Trump I where both houses overwhelmingly passed a bill to reject, but they didn’t have 2/3 to override the veto.

aowl.bsky.social•1 day ago

Fundamental problem that the sensible way to wrote legislation is to assume people will do their best in good faith but that leaves open a lot of room for bad faith actors. Flip side is to be super-prescriptive with no flexibility.

But I don’t think Chadha is the key problem

mosheroperandi.bsky.social•1 day ago

IDK, Chada's a big problem here, because it breaks the ability of Congress to do "trust, but verify".

Like, giving the president provisional power that Congress can review and yank back if abused is a good model to guard against bad faith actors, and SCOTUS said it has to be all-or-nothing.

ninaamenta.bsky.social•1 day ago

Thank you for clarifying that. They should vote to overturn it anyway.

joshchafetz.bsky.social•1 day ago

Which is just a reminder that some non-trivial percentage of what people think of as congressional fecklessness has actually been forced on Congress against its will by the Supreme Court.

branewave.bsky.social•1 day ago

Isn’t Congress feckless by not amending the NEA? Flip it around so that a president’s declaration lasts only 30 days unless Congress acts to extend it?

joshchafetz.bsky.social•1 day ago

Sure, but any attempt to do this would face a presidential veto and require 2/3 in both houses to override.

branewave.bsky.social•1 day ago

They’ve had plenty of time to do this. And they can still play hardball - attach it to the next CR or whatever else. Bare minimum show some spine. Else feckless *and* supine.

joshchafetz.bsky.social•1 day ago

Also the first post should obviously say “worst,” not “worse.” This is what I get for texting in the back of an uber.

counterpunkt.bsky.social•1 day ago

The Supreme Court is a menace. Exclusionary zoning is their fault too. So many things. They need to be stuck back in the basement of Congress where they belong.

alexanderwinn.bsky.social•1 day ago

Maybe Congress should have passed better laws to constrain the executive without trying to itself create a power grab.

redoubters.bsky.social•1 day ago

Grammatically it still parses just fine? "One of the better decisions of the 20th century" would also be acceptable, no?

yeasting.bsky.social•1 day ago

Are the leg. veto provisions of NEA still on the books in a way that would allow a vehicle to overturn or limit Chadha?

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