• 0 Posts
  • 30 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: June 14th, 2023

help-circle
  • Laws override precedent. The court’s job is explicitly to interpret the laws made by congress. Precedent is simply the way that previous courts have interpreted the laws at the time. If the relevant laws to the case haven’t changed since the previous case, that is where precedent comes in. If there are new laws written by congress then those are more important than precedent.

    Another user brought up the idea that they might still try to rule the new law unconstitutional but that would be a much harder bar to achieve legitimately since the constitution is intentionally rather succinct. Of course if the court is corrupt and no one actually challenges their power I suppose they could say anything they want- precedent overrules laws, anything they don’t like is unconstitutional, for the low low price of a vacation getaway you too can influence my rulings, etc. But legally speaking laws override precedent and doing away with a law because it is unconstitutional is an extremely high bar which can’t realistically be met by the vast majority of laws unless the law directly goes against the few rules that the constitution establishes.



  • That explanation ignores the “fix it” comment. Even being extremely generous and going with the line of thinking that you proposed and further adding that by “fix it” he meant that he would fix all of the problems of our country within the next term, that would still require the assumption that he has no values for which he believes needs to be stood up for after next term. Or more specifically that he doesn’t think it matters who is elected in the future. While I do believe that he is extremely egotistical and to a certain extent doesn’t care about anyone else, I have a hard time believing that he would be equally okay with anyone being elected even after his presumptive second term. The only way that I can see any of these comments making sense is if he is talking about rigging or altogether doing away with elections.

    And to be clear I’m not trying to argue with you since I understand you aren’t saying you agree with the statement you made. I’m just pointing out that you would have to do much more mental gymnastics than even that in order to get to some sort of excuse for those comments.


  • Bills in the US can originate from either the house or the Senate. If it passes one then it goes to the other. If it passes both then it goes to the President to be signed into law.

    E: technically there is an exception that bills for raising revenue have to originate in the house but that the Senate can propose or concur with amendments. But for all intents and purposes the vast majority of bills can originate in either body.



  • It is very clear legally speaking. There is a clause specifically to address this issue in the constitution called the supremacy clause. The way that it works is that if there is a federal law that specifies something then it takes priority over state laws. Some of the things that you mentioned would fall into both federal and state categories like education where states have some control but must also abide by federal regulations.

    The only exception to this rule is cannabis and the only reason that it has worked this way is because cannabis reform is so widely popular across the US that if the federal government were to withhold funding or otherwise punish states for making and enforcing laws that go against the supremacy clause it would not go over well for the politicians that make that decision. They know that federal cannabis regulations truly are outdated and not in touch with our modern society. That being said, supremacy clause is still in effect and the federal cannabis laws are still absolutely enforceable even in states where cannabis is “legal”. The federal government simply chooses not to enforce those laws there most of the time.

    Child labor laws absolutely do not fall into that same category as the vast majority of people don’t believe that child labor laws are outdated. The waters are not muddy on this issue at all.




  • Taking away protections for people wanting to join/form unions may make it harder to make that decision, and we should fight against those trying to remove those protections, but let’s not forget that they can’t take away the power that a unified workforce has. If every worker at Amazon decided that they were all going to stop doing their jobs at the same time and demand better working conditions it doesn’t matter what Congress says, it’s a matter of business for Amazon. Even if Amazon technically has the right to fire everyone because of the shitheads in Congress taking away all protection for unions, it is simply not a wise financial decision to try to rehire an entire workforce and train them all at the same time without anyone left to do the training, all while not making any money during this time and making their customers mad. It is much easier to just give some concessions and improve the working conditions to get their current workforce to come back. Of course this is an extreme example but it doesn’t take literally the entire workforce doing this to functionally cripple a company. And of course the demands can’t be so unreasonable that the company is unable to provide them. But this IS possible to achieve in reality. It takes a large group of people working together for the benefit of everyone but it is absolutely possible, even without protections which didn’t always exist by the way. So even if those protections go away temporarily, don’t give up on the idea of unions. That is what they really want. Fight for fair working conditions. And fight to elect politicians who will put in place/keep protections for unions. Don’t give up because that’s the only way that they win. Even a king has no power if his subjects refuse to kneel.