SCOTUS: No longer content with stacking, they're now dealing from the bottom of the deck

[88Comrade2000]

SCOTUS might rule the Democratic party illegal by 24.

[TheGreatBuzz]

8 hours ago, China said:

How the Supreme Court ruling will gut the EPA's ability to fight the climate crisis

 

The Supreme Court on Thursday dealt a major blow to climate action by handcuffing the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to regulate planet-warming emissions from the country's power plants, just as scientists warn the world is running out of time to get the climate crisis under control.

 

It is a major loss for not only the Biden administration's climate goals, but it also calls into question the future of federal-level climate action and puts even more pressure on Congress to act to reduce emissions.

Experts tell CNN it could set the US back years on its path to rein in the climate crisis and its deadly, costly impacts.

The opinion makes it "more difficult to achieve larger-scale emissions reductions," Andres Restrepo, senior attorney for the Sierra Club's Environmental Law Program, told CNN. "To avoid the worst impacts of climate change we need to do a lot more and move a lot faster. That's why today's ruling is such a setback."

 

At the heart of Thursday's opinion was a question over the EPA's authority to regulate planet-warming emissions from power plants, which are a huge contributor to the climate crisis.

 

"Failing to regulate heat-trapping emissions will harm people and ecosystems worldwide," said Kristina Dahl, a senior climate scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists. "We're already dangerously behind what the science shows is necessary, and the court's majority has made solving the problem much more difficult."

 

The Supreme Court said the Clean Air Act does not give EPA broad authority to regulate planet-warming emissions from power plants. The agency still has options to regulate emissions, but the court said that the law does not empower the agency to put a limit on emissions and force power plants to move away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy.

"The one thing EPA won't be able to do is what the Clean Power Plan did," Richard Revesz, an environmental law expert at NYU School of Law told CNN.

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

 

So my understanding is SCOTUS said the EPA, by way of the executive branch, said they can't just decide pollution limits and such.  That is the job of Congress to pass legislation doing that.

 

That doesn’t sound too far out.

 

 

6 hours ago, Long n Left said:

Love him. Smart, direct, no nonsense, but not sure THIS America would vote an openly gay candidate to the highest position in the land/world.

He has a lot more good to do for the country before running for president. 

 

5 hours ago, Springfield said:

Hey guys. Just my weekly check in to say how ****ed we all are.

 

Apparently, it’s the liberals who should have been amassing stockpiles of weapons this whole time…

 

I started a thread about it.

[Larry]

35 minutes ago, The Almighty Buzz said:

So my understanding is SCOTUS said the EPA, by way of the executive branch, said they can't just decide pollution limits and such.  That is the job of Congress to pass legislation doing that.

 

That doesn’t sound too far out.

 

Yet somehow, I strongly suspect that:  

 

1)  That's the way other pollution limits have been set.  

2)  The EPA does that, because Congress passed legislation, giving that authority.  

 

But it's certainly possible that I'm mistaken on those.  

 

 

[The Sisko]

7 hours ago, The Almighty Buzz said:

So my understanding is SCOTUS said the EPA, by way of the executive branch, said they can't just decide pollution limits and such.  That is the job of Congress to pass legislation doing that.

 

That doesn’t sound too far out.

This is how the Anti-Freedom party works. They do things that on the surface seem to not be a big deal but in fact, make a huge difference.

I’m not a lawyer but my understanding of this is that when it relates to “major” stuff, Congress would have to pass very specific laws whereas up until now, they could pass looser legislation that allows agencies the leeway to write regulations that achieve the broad goals of the legislation. Ultimately, I think bills will need to be longer and more numerous to accomplish anything and there will be ever more court challenges to the ability of agencies to regulate almost anything because companies will seek to push the margins on which regulations are considered “major”. To me it’s sort of like looking at someone who’s hog tied and telling them they’re perfectly welcome to scratch their nose.

[PeterMP]

9 hours ago, The Almighty Buzz said:

So my understanding is SCOTUS said the EPA, by way of the executive branch, said they can't just decide pollution limits and such.  That is the job of Congress to pass legislation doing that.

 

That doesn’t sound too far out.

 

If we had a reasonably functioning government with two parties interested in good governance, there is no real issue with what the Supreme Court has done.  Historically, Congress has passed legislation to deal with major environmental issues.

 

Through the years and going back to the 1970s and through the early 1990s, Congress has passed bills to cover major environmental issues like the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act.

 

The issue is over the last 20 years or so as the Republicans have gotten less interested in across the board good governance and really only interested in their personal ideas, keeping power, and what is important to the evangelicals, those sort of things have become less common and the EPA has stepped in to fill the gap.

 

(Though, some do argue that the EPA stepping into fill the gap has prevented the Republicans from reaping the negative consequences for their failure to treat environmental issues more seriously and so allowed the Republicans to further slide down the hole they have.  We will see.

 

Relatedly, the House Republicans have actually introduced some climate change legislation and while it doesn't do much it does require the leadership to at least acknowledge that climate change is real, an issue, and something we can do something about.

 

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/01/house-republicans-to-introduce-climate-change-strategy-with-eye-on-midterms-00036481

 

Which is likely tied to their voters starting to become concerned.)

8 hours ago, Larry said:

 

Yet somehow, I strongly suspect that:  

 

1)  That's the way other pollution limits have been set.  

2)  The EPA does that, because Congress passed legislation, giving that authority.  

 

But it's certainly possible that I'm mistaken on those.  

 

 

 

There's no real doubt that over the last 30 years or so the EPA has taken over more power.

 

The cap and trade policy required to reduce acid rain was the result of legislation passed by Congress and signed by Bush (41).  And then enforced by the EPA.  But there was specific underlying Congressional legislation that was in addition to that which founded the EPA.

 

So that did happen in the past.  The issue is that getting any environmental regulation passed today is essentially impossible no matter how small.

Edited July 1, 2022 by PeterMP

[PeterMP]

If we had a reasonably functioning government, we'd have a plan for climate change already in place instead of the EPA trying to make one up now.

[TheGreatBuzz]

15 minutes ago, PeterMP said:

If we had a reasonably functioning government, we'd have a plan for climate change already in place instead of the EPA trying to make one up now.

 

27 minutes ago, PeterMP said:

 

If we had a reasonably functioning government with two parties interested in good governance, there is no real issue with what the Supreme Court has done.  Historically, Congress has passed legislation to deal with major environmental issues.

 

 

 

But aren't people expecting SCOTUS to take into account that Congress is inept?  I dont think that is supposed to be how they rule.

 

I also think somehow SCOTUS has gotten too much power.  They don't seem like an equal branch of government anymore but instead had put themselves ahead of the other branches as the arbiter of EVERYTHING.   I don't think that was part of the original intent.

[China]

1 minute ago, The Almighty Buzz said:

 

 

I also think somehow SCOTUS has gotten too much power.  They don't seem like an equal branch of government anymore but instead had put themselves ahead of the other branches as the arbiter of EVERYTHING.   I don't think that was part of the original intent.

 

That's why there are supposed to be "checks and balances."  Unfortunately Congress is too weak and inept to use their power to "check" SCOTUS by at least investigating whether Thomas should be impeached.  They don't have to impeach him, but they should at least investigate to send a message letting SCOTUS know that shenanigans won't be tolerated.  Otherwise, what's the point of having that "check" if you're not willing to use it?

[tshile]

36 minutes ago, PeterMP said:

Which is likely tied to their voters starting to become concerned.)

Yup. Farmers specifically, who have traditionally denied global warming/climate change and preferred to defer to God handling the climate the way he sees fit, have finally recognized their livelihood is on the line and the problem requires more than they can handle, financially, to solve. As such, industry lobbyists began work years back to start moving towards legislative ideas for them. 
 

It’s interesting how minds can change when they bring personally affected. Global warming went from something that didn’t exist, to something that was God’s responsibility and not the government, to something the government needs to help them with. 
 

I’m half joking, but not really, but I expect a big republican “climate change bill” to basically fund relocating farms. Ie: not doing anything about the problem, but finding money to pay for them to relocate to where they can farm better with future weather conditions in mind 

7 minutes ago, China said:

That's why there are supposed to be "checks and balances."  Unfortunately Congress is too weak and inept to use their power to "check" SCOTUS by at least investigating whether Thomas should be impeached.

That’s not really the check they perform. 
 

the check they perform is passing federal legislation and, if need be, amendments. Because since it’s in the constitution, SCOTUS doesn’t have dick all to say about it. 
 

All of these rulings can be “overturned” by congress by simply passing legislations and amendments. I realize the gut reaction is to baulk at the use of the word simply, but reality is the process is simple and straight forward, even if collecting the necessary votes to execute it isn’t. 

[tshile]

9 hours ago, The Almighty Buzz said:

So my understanding is SCOTUS said the EPA, by way of the executive branch, said they can't just decide pollution limits and such.  That is the job of Congress to pass legislation doing that.

 

That doesn’t sound too far out.

this is how I feel too. 
 

It’s not scotus’ job to give us a functioning legislative branch. 
 

and I’m not really sure where anyone gets the idea that it’s scotus’ job to step in for a dysfunctional legislative branch. I understand the desire, but I don’t understand where anyone gets the idea that is their job. 
 

I don’t have a problem with scotus saying “uh, no, that’s not how you do things. Go do them the correct way”

 

I think it’s telling the same people that have broken our legislative system - which to be clear, for me, is the voters of this country, the people who decide who gets to be in the legislative branch - are taking this moment not to reflect on how things are kicked back to where they belong and what should be done about it, but instead either celebrating or decrying the “gutting” of the EPA. 
 

And no, just because an issue is important, doesn’t mean you deserve a pass for not doing things correctly. 

Edited July 1, 2022 by tshile

[PeterMP]

13 minutes ago, The Almighty Buzz said:

But aren't people expecting SCOTUS to take into account that Congress is inept?  I dont think that is supposed to be how they rule.

 

I also think somehow SCOTUS has gotten too much power.  They don't seem like an equal branch of government anymore but instead had put themselves ahead of the other branches as the arbiter of EVERYTHING.   I don't think that was part of the original intent.

 

I think people want things done that they want done and feel like need to be done.  And they see the Supreme Court as preventing that.  They don't care what the Supreme Court should be considering.  They just want what they think needs to be done to be done.

 

And I think the Supreme Court seems like they have a lot of power because a lot of people want a lot of things done that historically would have been done through legislation that aren't currently happening through legislation so it is being done by the executive branch.

 

Just on climate change, there is a reason why the EPA didn't do this 30 years ago.  It is because it is questionable whether they have the authority.  Going back to the 1990s there has been talk (mostly on the Democratic side but occasionally Republicans) of passing climate change legislation because that's how it would have happened normally.

 

Pick your favorite topic that the Supreme Court has decided recently and really over the last 60 years in most cases, it is a situation where we don't have clear legislation to deal with it.  Those cases end up in front of the court.

[tshile]

51 minutes ago, PeterMP said:

Though, some do argue that the EPA stepping into fill the gap has prevented the Republicans from reaping the negative consequences for their failure to treat environmental issues more seriously and so allowed the Republicans to further slide down the hole they have.  We will see.

This is an interesting idea, I hadn’t heard yet. I like that kind of thinking 

[The Evil Genius]

I think you all are ignoring the danger of the Federalist 6's repeated use of the major questions doctrine on this past week's slate of rulings. 

 

The MAGA SCOTUS will hide behind it, but only when they want to kill things that the GOP doesn't like, to overturn a ****load of other sensible acts and powers next cycle. 

Edited July 1, 2022 by The Evil Genius

[JCB]

Hugely important and insightful piece by the *great* Jamelle Bouie here. I'd recommend circulating this widely. Will paste in for non-subscribers.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/01/opinion/dobbs-roe-supreme-court.html

 

The U.S. Constitution contains several idle provisions: words, phrases and clauses that have little to no bearing on our constitutional order as it currently exists.

Let’s start here: Article 3 of the Constitution gives the Supreme Court “original jurisdiction” in all cases affecting “Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party.” That part is obviously in effect, although most cases between states occur in the lower federal courts established by Congress. The Constitution then states that in all other cases, “the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction.” This, too, is in full effect.

But then the Constitution tells us that the court’s appellate jurisdiction is subject to “such Exceptions” and “under such Regulations” as “the Congress shall make.”

This is where it gets interesting. The court’s appellate jurisdiction accounts for virtually everything it touches. And the Constitution says that Congress can regulate the nature of that jurisdiction. Congress can strip the court of its ability to hear certain cases, or it can mandate new rules for how the court decides cases where it has appellate jurisdiction. And as I recently mentioned, it can even tell the court that it needs a supermajority of justices to declare a federal law or previous decision unconstitutional.

 

 

There are real questions about the scope of congressional power to regulate the Supreme Court. If Congress has complete control over the court’s appellate jurisdiction, then there are no real limits as to what it could do to shape and structure the court, threatening the separation of powers. As James Madison said with regard to the Bank Bill of 1791, “An interpretation that destroys the very characteristic of the government cannot be just.”

But this is nearly a moot point. The modern Congress has largely relinquished its power to regulate and structure the court. The final clause of Article 3, Section 2 is not quite a dead letter, but it is close.

What is a dead letter (and which I’ve also written about before) is the Guarantee Clause of the Constitution, which states that

The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.

The reason for the clause is straightforward. “The more intimate the nature of such a Union may be,” Madison wrote in Federalist No. 43, “the greater interest have the members in the political institutions of each other; and the greater right to insist that the forms of government under which the compact was entered into, should be substantially maintained.”

But neither Congress nor the courts has ever said, with any precision, what it means for the United States to guarantee to every state a “republican form of government.” The most we have is Justice John Marshall Harlan’s famous dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson, in which he condemns “sinister legislation” passed to “interfere with the full enjoyment of the blessings of freedom, to regulate civil rights, common to all citizens, upon the basis of race, and to place in a condition of legal inferiority a large body of American citizens, now constituting a part of the political community.”

This, he writes, “is inconsistent with the guarantee given by the Constitution to each State of a republican form of government, and may be stricken down by congressional action, or by the courts in the discharge of their solemn duty to maintain the supreme law of the land.”

 

 

A Congress that wanted to could, in theory, use the Guarantee Clause to defend the basic rights of citizens against overbearing and tyrannical state governments. It’s been done before. After the Civil War, Radical Republicans in Congress found their constitutional power to reconstruct the South chiefly in the Guarantee Clause, which they used to protect the rights of Black Americans from revanchist state governments.

Since Reconstruction, however, no Congress has wanted to use the Guarantee Clause to protect the rights and liberties of Americans. It’s a vestigial part of our constitutional history, atrophied from disuse.

The same goes for sections 2 and 3 of the 14th Amendment. Section 2 states that “representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed.” It then specifies that if the right to vote for federal office is “denied” or “in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion” to “any of the male inhabitants” of such a state, then “the basis of representation therein shall be reduced” in proportion to the denial in question.

Section 3 also deals with representation. It states that

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid and comfort to the enemies thereof.

The purpose of section 2 was to invalidate the Three-Fifths clause of the Constitution and to prevent state governments from disenfranchising Black voters. And the purpose of section 3 was to prevent former Confederate leaders from holding state and federal office. But while the 14th Amendment gives Congress the power to enforce its provisions by “appropriate legislation,” Congress has never exercised its ability to deny representation to states that violate the right of citizens to vote, nor has it used its ability to disqualify those lawmakers who have engaged in acts of rebellion or insurrection. In the wake of Jan. 6, Representatives Cori Bush and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called on Congress to investigate and expel members who aided the attack, but their demands went nowhere.

It’s here that you can see why I think it’s important to talk about these seemingly idle provisions. As recent events have made clear, powerful reactionaries are waging a successful war against American democracy using the counter-majoritarian institutions of the American political system, cloaking their views in a distorted version of our Constitution, where self-government means minority rule and the bugaboos of right-wing culture warriors are somehow “deeply rooted” in our “history and traditions.”

But the Republic is not defenseless. The Constitution gives our elected officials the power to restrain a lawless Supreme Court, protect citizens from the “sinister legislation” of the states, punish those states for depriving their residents of the right to vote and expel insurrectionists from Congress.

They are drastic measures that would break the norms of American politics. They might even spark a constitutional crisis over the power and authority of Congress.

 

 

But let’s not be naïve. The norms of American politics were shattered when Donald Trump organized a conspiracy to subvert the presidential election. They were shattered again when he sent an armed mob of supporters to attack the Capitol and stop Congress from certifying the votes of the Electoral College. And they were shattered one more time in the early hours of the next day, when, even after all that, hundreds of his congressional allies voted to overturn the election.

As for the constitutional crisis, it is arguably already here. Both the insurrection and the partisan lawmaking of the Supreme Court have thrown those counter-majoritarian features of the American system into sharp relief. They’ve raised hard questions about the strength and legitimacy of institutions that allow minority rule — and allow it to endure. It is a crisis when the fundamental rights of hundreds of millions of Americans are functionally overturned by an unelected tribunal whose pivotal members owe their seats to a president who won office through the mechanism of the Electoral College, having lost the majority of voters in both of his election campaigns.

The ground has shifted. The game has changed. The only question left is whether our leaders have the strength, fortitude and audacity to forge a new path for American democracy — and if they don’t, whether it is finally time for us to find ones who do.

 

[Cooked Crack]

 

[LD0506]

Just a question of how finely you dice them...

 

 

[Cooked Crack]

 

Should have had to walk past the protestors. I'm sure he's perfectly fine with those at abortion clinics.

[spjunkies]

"We lost out on $700 because we had to comp Mr. Brett his meal"

[Hersh]

 How dare the peasants interrupt their dinners. 

[Fan since a Fetus]

 

 Now is not the time to protest. your protests are making it inconvenient for us. Do not protest during my football game. Do not protest in my street. Do not protest at my house. Do not protest in public while I’m eating dinner.
 

Please find a place that you are neither seen or heard if you want to protest. Your 1st amendment rights will only be upheld if your protest are where and when I say you are allowed. But to be clear, here and now is not the time.
 

You need to learn proper manners while we are taking your rights away and killing your citizens. 
 

God, Guns and the ability to keep quiet while your rights are being whittled away. America!!! Freedom!!! Patriot!!!

[The Evil Genius]

Being a originalist, I'm sure Brett can show where the Constitution talks about the right to an uninterrupted dinner for him and his fellow Federalists.

 

Maybe Kav should just go to another Mortons in another state?

Edited July 8, 2022 by The Evil Genius

[The Evil Genius]

 

 

[Captain Wiggles]

What kinda beverages did he have tho? 

 

[LD0506]

[PokerPacker]

On 7/8/2022 at 8:26 AM, Cooked Crack said:

 

Should have had to walk past the protestors. I'm sure he's perfectly fine with those at abortion clinics.

Supreme court is perfectly fine with protestors outside the private residences of abortion doctors.  As fate would have it, the addresses of the justices have been plastered around the internet.  Perhaps there are better places to protest than where they eat dinner.  Places a bit more disruptive.  Then again, why not protest them everywhere?