Comment by somenameforme | Hacker News Reader

Comment by somenameforme | Hacker News Reader

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I think a lot of people that are freaking out are missing that this applies to the executive branch, over whom the President has already perfectly well established. Literally the first statement of article 2 of the US Constitution (which lays out the power/rules for the executive branch) is "The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America."

The main point of this executive order is likely part of the ongoing issues related to the chevron deference. [1] Chevron deference [1] was a (IMO very weird) legal standard that was overturned in 2024. It required the judicial to completely defer to the executive branch in cases where the laws around executive departments (generally relating to the the limits of their regulatory power/authority) were ambiguous. When this was overturned, the judiciary regained their independence and were once again able to hear and independently judge cases around these executive departments.

This order is now stating that the executive branch departments themselves will no longer be independently interpreting the law at all, but instead defer to the legal opinions of the head of the executive. The order itself also makes it clear that it does not allow rejecting or unreasonably redefining the laws applying to the various departments - instead the main issue is where potential ambiguities and related limits/allowances will be determined. And of course those determinations could then be challenged by either the judiciary or the legislative (by passing overriding laws).

The short version of this is "Executive departments will now be directly accountable to all three branches of government - executive, legislative, and judicial."

[1] - https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/chevron_deference

This is just a statement of the unitary executive theory. Unitary executive theory is controversial, and the controversy there did not (until, oh about last month) align with party lines.

We’re not “missing” anything, your interpretation of the Constitution is incorrect. You may want to scroll up and read Article I, which constrains Article II (that’s why it comes first).

Your understanding of Chevron deference is also incorrect, for what it’s worth.

> You may want to scroll up and read Article I, which constrains Article II (that’s why it comes first)

What in Article I imposes constraints on the presidency? It's almost all about the legislature itself, and hardly mentions the executive. Specifically, I don't see anything that lends credence to the idea that Congress can control the workings of executive departments.

Article I defines the powers of Congress. Having been assigned to Congress, those powers are not available to the president.

Instead, the president is responsible for faithfully executing the laws. So if the law defines how an agency is staffed and makes policy, the president is bound by that.

If this seems like an imposition upon the president, please remember that the president agrees to these impositions in advance by signing the laws.

> if the law defines how an agency is staffed and makes policy

Strongly contingent upon this, right? Wasn't the whole "administrative state" / "Chevron deference" argument that Congress did the bare minimum in defining what an executive agency is supposed to do, left it up to the executive to direct it as it sees fit? And worse, the supposedly apolitical career civil servants in charge of these agencies may from time to time thwart the will of the democratically elected head of the executive?

Where is the people's recourse then?

The original Chevron ruling was an expansion of executive branch power; it said courts should give “deference” to agencies in matters where Congress was not specific—usually in detailed findings of fact and definition of regulations, the work of the agency. Congress usually is specific about structure and governance.

The recent decision to formally overturn this precedent was a reduction in power for the executive branch, since it greatly expanded the scope of when a judge could overrule agencies. However, judges were mostly already doing this, so the big headline ruling was more like a funeral than a murder.

> I don't see anything that lends credence to the idea that Congress can control the workings of executive departments.

Along with what others have said, you might want to recognize that Congress controls the purse. They dictate how much the executive should spend on each item, though that can be nuanced (as in "up to this much" vs "exactly this much")

Congress created those departments, and specified how they should be staffed and operated, and what powers they were granted.

That's because the executive does not have the power to create those departments (Article II does not grant that power).

It's an undeniably weird setup: the departments are staffed and run by the executive branch, and they report up into the president, but they are still accountable to Congress, which is where their power to do anything is derived from.

> this applies to the executive branch

So he gets to tell police what the law is and who to arrest within the "law" that he proclaimed.

> It required the judicial to completely defer to the executive branch in cases where the laws around executive departments (generally relating to the the limits of their regulatory power/authority) were ambiguous.

Why doesn’t congress do its job and write laws that do things?

Because the republicans punish their own when they reach out to support bipartisan efforts.

Even right now, congressmen have been threatened with being primaries if they don’t toe the line.

There has been multiple decades of very public efforts to degrade and break the American system. Ever since watergate.

Congress was broken.

I don't disagree with you, and neither would the Founding Fathers. In fact they were even opposed to the concept of political parties, but the power/convenience they enable means that lasted all of 5 seconds. But I would say that Congressmen being threatened with being primaried if they do unpopular things is literally the entire point of representative democracy.

I think the question is when that pressure to obey is coming from the people and when it's instead coming from the party. In the ideal scenario the party and the people (at least the constituency) would be in lockstep. In any case term limits would help. If you're going to be out of office in at most two terms, it eliminates any point about sacrificing your values for some sort of long-term favor/benefit with the party.

Why this conversation, where it seems like these things are mysterious?

Post watergate, Conservatives built FOX, they laid out their plan to break the american system, and take over to push their agenda.

No one took it seriously, and now when its happening, people are still unable to look at it.

You have the pantomine of a party. They have debates. They have primaries. They have a media organization which is 'independent'.

The solution is to fix congress, rather than further consolidate executive branch. Later leads to very predictable outcomes, and they aren’t exactly democratic.

I’ll choose stale democracy over striving autocracy each day every day.

The way regulatory authority works is that Congress writes laws that offer general guidance, and then regulatory body creates rules around that guidance. It can enable them to quickly react to changing scenarios, and also offer greater expertise or more detail than may be reasonable to expect of Congress. The issues arises when it's unclear if actions and guidance are aligned.

For a contemporary example, part of the CDC's power comes from Section 361 of the Public Health Services Act [1], which grants them the power to execute orders to prevent the spread of disease into the country or in between states. Examples included inspection, pest extermination, fumigation, and so on. The CDC invoked this power to prevent landlords from evicting delinquent tenants during the COVID stuff.

That was a gross enough (and also, critically, harmful enough) violation of their mandate that it was able to be challenged in the courts and eventually tossed even in the Chevon Deference era, but a lot of scenarios are much more ambiguous. So now their actions will be fully subject to oversight from all branches of government. The end result is that executive departments will have a much harder time overstepping the bounds of authority granted to them by Congress.

[1] - https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/COMPS-8773/pdf/COMPS-877... (page 405)

> The end result is that executive departments will have a much harder time overstepping the bounds of authority granted to them by Congress.

You could’ve fooled me.

Where do you think all these powerful agencies came from?

It'll take some time, but I would highly recommend reading the oral argument transcript for the Chevron decision. You'll see some good history and opinions on why Congress now does what it does.

It wasn't always so. In 1979, when Chrysler wanted federal loan guarantees, Congress passed a specific act to do so. Contrast that with what's now a blanket check to agencies thru an Omnibus

https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcr...

You're misunderstanding the EO. It has nothing to do with the Chevron deference (and you are also misunderstanding the impact of the Chevron deference)

No - it’s a statement that the executive branch will (as a matter of policy) ignore Judicial and Congressional oversight. Unless it wants it, anyway.

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