I think no matter how you look at the constitution it's seems wild to think Congress can create such an entity that's not answerable to anything but Congress.
Or at least prior to the nullification of Chevron, that's how it was supposed to work.
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
The USA constitution is explicitly the opposite unless Congress is allowed to do something it's not allowed to. Chevron has absolutely nothing to do with that.
Why would I need to? While it has taken a long time these gross abuses of power are being slowly corrected.
There's no need to use the Uncle Tom epithet to criticize the behavior you don't like in a Supreme Court judge.
The Necessary and Proper Clause (or Elastic Clause) in the Constitution grants (or granted, I guess) this power.
It's wild to think how Republicans used to complain about activist judges, but the current Federalist Society slate has undone at least 100+ years of precedent in the last half dozen.
Projection, as usual. When in opposition they act as if the Democrats were doing <insert evil thing>, so they can justify doing <evil thing> when they come topower, because it's "just a reaction".
Also the president has always had some power to remove board members for cause, not Congress. Congress can change the enabling statutes but only if the President signs the law (or they override the President's Veto). I'm not aware of how Congress can intercede in specific cases.
So I don't think it's actually so that the NLRB not answerable to anything but Congress.
Without the legal protection of unions or even the ability to generally get strong labor protections, it’s likely that society will be forced to renegotiate how labor protections and bargaining will work, or provide new laws to govern it. The idea that unions and collective bargaining will just be over is a fantasy of the mega corp CEOs. Either we’ll see a future SCOTUS revive the laws and board, or it’s yet another institution that needs to be rebuilt post trump/project-2025.
Workers certainly have the right to quit based on Elon Musk's off-work comments. Why should Musk have less right to free association? If my gardener keeps calling me an asshole even when he's not working for me, should I need a separate justification to fire him? How many people could I hire without losing my freedom to associate?
It is a true factual statement, leon is an asshole. Also, since when does leon's freedoms trump mine? leon's free association gains precedent over my freedom of speech?
Where does it stop? Let's say I associate myself with a religion that leon doesn't like. You know the one that leon likes to salute in public. leon's free association gains precedent over my freedom of religion, too?
Nobody is disputing Musk’s right to quit if he doesn’t like his workers’ comments.
That is a strange piece of legal reasoning. It's derived from the theory of the unitary executive, or, as Trump says, "I can do whatever I want." Under this theory, which is relatively new, Congress cannot constrain the president much. Until recently, it was considered settled that the president can't fire most federal employees. Cabinet members serve "at the pleasure of the President", but further down, civil service employees were not fireable by political officials.
That's changed.
Until recently, it was assumed that a president who tried this stuff would be impeached. That prevented presidents from getting out of control. But Congress is too weak now to do its duty of constraining the president.
[1] https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/24/24-50627-CV0.pd...
This mistake with Trump and others like him cannot be allowed to happen again.
Tadpole9181•1h ago
> The Fifth Circuit found that the ALJ’s safeguards are unconstitutional, and the members’ shields are likely unconstitutional... [Despite] the US Supreme Court’s decision in Humphrey’s Executor v. US, a 90-year-old precedent that has long supported the restrictions Congress imposed on the president’s power to dismiss independent agency officials.
And back to TFA:
> Under the still-novel theory of the unitary executive, which holds that the federal agencies that Congress established and presidents signed into law to be independent of presidential power, save only the power to appoint their leaders, are now in violation of the newly discovered right of presidents to completely control these agencies.
It's worth noting that the NLRB is already clinging on with life support. Trump has intentionally (illegally) fired and neglected to replace 3 members now, leaving only 2 acting chairs. This doesn't meet quorum requirements for decision-making, leaving the full appeals process legally impossible to complete and businesses essentially free to violate labor law without fear of consequence until the NLRB is restored.
With this ruling, we may be seeing the final blows dealt to the NLRB, and a signal that companies need not even fear later reprisal.
[1] https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/spacex-keep...
stego-tech•1h ago
It’s a constructive demolition of the institution not by a single Appeal’s Court judgement (there’s still SCOTUS, after all), but by exploiting the weakness inherent in its original designs. This is a tactic we’ll continue to see because Congress has steadfastly refused to remove or address these institutional weakpoints throughout government for half a century, on purpose.
The entire point was to tear down anything impeding Capital and enriching labor, regardless of the long-term consequences. That’s succeeding at present, but the bill inevitably comes due, and historically these sorts of personal enrichment schemes at the expense of the masses end in violence and result in a regional or global dark age; I do not expect this time to be any different.
itsdrewmiller•1h ago