> ... I am exhausted by the continuous flip-flopping of legislation depending on which party is in charge.
By design, Congress is unable to do anything. It's either one party (always the same party) being completely obstructionist, even other presidential appointments, or if a rotating villain who defects and stops any meaningful legislation.
Power has moved to the courts and to the states. Again, entirely by design. In the current term, there is an inocuous sounding case called Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo [1], which is expected to overturn a longstanding (~40 years) precedent called Chevron [2]. This would gut Federal agencies. Chevron set a precedent that in areas of ambiguity courts would give deference to Federal agencies. The argument for this is that Congress has to be explicit but Congress cannot possibly explicitly regulate, for example, salmon quotas and inspections. The goal here is deregulation for profit. That's it.
For the last 30+ years, every president issues an executive order on day 1 either banning or allowing recipients of foreign aid to provide counselling on abortion, depending on the party.
The real question here is why did this take 3 years into Biden's regime for the FCC to act? The FCC is an appointed position. This could've been done in 2021.
> Maybe it's always been this way though and I'm just getting old enough to be bothered by it?
No, it's now more obstructionist than it ever has been but it's always been more difficult to make changes than not. Previously there was more respect for institutional norms. For example, if the president nominated someone for a position, that person would always get a Senate hearing regardless of who controlled the Senate. There is no law that required that but people previously accepted the president had a mandate for appointments. Now? It's way more scorched earth.
> The real question here is why did this take 3 years into Biden's regime for the FCC to act? The FCC is an appointed position. This could've been done in 2021.
FCC commissioners must be approved by the Senate. Biden nominated Gigi Sohn in 2021. Republicans blocked her. Biden nominated Sohn again. I don't think he said why. But other Democrats believed Republicans would block anyone who would restore net neutrality. Republicans blocked Sohn again. Democrats took control of the Senate in 2023. Joe Manchin said he would block Sohn. Sohn withdrew. Biden nominated Anna Gomez. The Senate approved her in September. The FCC started the process for this vote a few days later.
Democrats controlled the Senate in 2021. Republicans didn't block the nomination. Democrats allowed the Republicans to block the nomination. The process by which that block happened could easily have been eliminated by a Senate rules change. There were attempts to do this on other issues (eg voting rights) but the rotating villains of the Democratic Party at the time (ie Sinema, Manchin) blocked it.
Joe Liebermann was previously the rotating villain. He is singlehandedly the only reason why 55 year olds can't buy into Medicare to get health insurance coverage.
The Senate was split evenly in 2021 and operated under a power sharing agreement. And you can't change rules easily or not when you don't have the votes.
I reject the rotating villain conspiracy theory. 1 scapegoat would have been enough. Sinema's choices ended her Senate career. Manchin and Lieberman didn't change suddenly.
> By design, Congress is unable to do anything. It's either one party (always the same party) being completely obstructionist, even other presidential appointments, or if a rotating villain who defects and stops any meaningful legislation.
Don't pretend like the Democrats wouldn't be just as obstructionist if it suited their political objectives.
What we actually have is lack of consensus, and excessively polarized factions that are unwilling to budge to create a consensus (or rather waste their energy making a great deal of noise on non-consensus issues and nonstarters and bickering with each other).
> Don't pretend like the Democrats wouldn't be just as obstructionist if it suited their political objectives.
So if someone throws a stone at you, you might reasonably be tempted to throw a stone back. If called up on this, you might be tempted to say "he started it". Legally speaking, that might or might not be a defense.
What if instead you throw a stone at someone and justify it with "he was going to throw a stone at me"? Would you consider that a sound defense?
Take it further. Your defense becomes "he would've thrown a stone at me if he had the option so I had to throw the stone at him". No reasonable person would respect that argument.
So why is the hypothetical "Democrats would block a Supreme Court nomination if they had the chance" reasonable to you?
> Don't pretend like the Democrats wouldn't be just as obstructionist if it suited their political objectives.
And this is exactly what they did when Trump was in office! Their motto was “#resist” for crying out loud. Sheesh, right now TikTok is on the verge of being banned, something that they were completely against when Trump wanted to do it. Bad idea when Trump wants it, good idea when Biden does.
Just be honest folks, it’s truly a “both sides” thing. And honestly, political gridlock is a good thing. Most of the people here on HN quickly forget how valuable it is when it’s the side YOU don’t like ramming legislation through.
By design, Congress is unable to do anything. It's either one party (always the same party) being completely obstructionist, even other presidential appointments, or if a rotating villain who defects and stops any meaningful legislation.
Power has moved to the courts and to the states. Again, entirely by design. In the current term, there is an inocuous sounding case called Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo [1], which is expected to overturn a longstanding (~40 years) precedent called Chevron [2]. This would gut Federal agencies. Chevron set a precedent that in areas of ambiguity courts would give deference to Federal agencies. The argument for this is that Congress has to be explicit but Congress cannot possibly explicitly regulate, for example, salmon quotas and inspections. The goal here is deregulation for profit. That's it.
For the last 30+ years, every president issues an executive order on day 1 either banning or allowing recipients of foreign aid to provide counselling on abortion, depending on the party.
The real question here is why did this take 3 years into Biden's regime for the FCC to act? The FCC is an appointed position. This could've been done in 2021.
> Maybe it's always been this way though and I'm just getting old enough to be bothered by it?
No, it's now more obstructionist than it ever has been but it's always been more difficult to make changes than not. Previously there was more respect for institutional norms. For example, if the president nominated someone for a position, that person would always get a Senate hearing regardless of who controlled the Senate. There is no law that required that but people previously accepted the president had a mandate for appointments. Now? It's way more scorched earth.
[1]: https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/loper-bright-ent...
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevron_U.S.A.,_Inc._v._Natura....