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Comment by pirate787 | Hacker News Reader

> "This is one of the biggest signals that the US is an oligarchy and not a democracy."

The constitutional doctrine of separation of powers generally limits regulatory law enforcement by the executive against the legislative branch. This is actually a signal of constitutionally limited government-- this is a design feature.

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This feels like a stretch. I really doubt anyone who designed the constitution intended to give lawmakers the ability to trade on insider information obtained through their position legally.

No, but they intended to limit the Presidents ability to create new regulations that could put legislators in jail.

Except the legislature gave the executive branch the power to create and enforce those regulations. Not to mention the type of abuse the restriction is aimed at preventing would still be allowed to take place against regular citizens (classic examples are ATF definitions changing randomly and even conflicting with statute or other regulations).

Yes, it gave the executive branch those powers but exempted itself.

And with good reason - can you imagine if a sitting president created a new regulation that conveniently put his congressional opponents in prison?

Do you have a link to that?

Can you imagine a world where the president can do the same to ordinary people? On the whole, regulatory agencies lack the checks and balances that our system is supposedly built on.

https://www.heritage.org/courts/report/who-will-regulate-the...

Judges also have strict rules about what they can and can't trade. So do congressional aides, and the capitol police (both part of the legislative branch). It's only members of congress who don't.

Other countries have no problem prosecuting lawmakers for insider trading.

You're going to have to reference some court decisions to clarify your point. We're not talking about the executive regulating the legislature itself, but rather enforcing general laws against individuals in their personal capacity while those individuals happen to be part of the legislature.

Your argument is akin to saying that members of congress cannot be prosecuted for murder through the usual channels, because that would be the executive interfering with the legislature.

Furthermore, how is the legislature not able to bind itself to have its members be subject to law enforcement by the executive branch?

Yeah, and this means the regulation of shady activity on the part of the legislature falls to the legislative body itself. And I get the philosophy behind it, but it's the figurative fox guarding the henhouse here. This is why any legislature proposed by the few principled figures in Congress that proposes to curb corrupt practices like this in the legislature is usually dead on arrival.

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