There are 1,000's of laws in this country from Federal to State to County to Local.

Roe v Wade is by far the loudest of the basis for my question but we see it ever day from Trump to Biden to any number of politically biased Laws....

Why are these laws not spelled out more clearly? Way too much interpretation and gray matter.

There are legitimate arguments on both sides as to whether R v W is a constitutional right or not. But that is the point maybe. Either it is or it is not.



But there are myriads of other rulings that get overruled / paused etc.... For example from last week:

Graham Testimony on hold

The back and forth over releasing Trumps financial data is another one that is on/off ever other month. I mean really - either Trumps numbers are up for public view or they are not? What changes from one step on the judicial ladder to the next?

For me personally, it is just another reason to be skeptical of the entire system. Too much personal opinion and not enough bedrock yes/no rules as written.

(08-22-2022 09:04 AM)Eldonabe Wrote:  There are 1,000's of laws in this country from Federal to State to County to Local.

Roe v Wade is by far the loudest of the basis for my question but we see it ever day from Trump to Biden to any number of politically biased Laws....

Why are these laws not spelled out more clearly? Way too much interpretation and gray matter.

There are legitimate arguments on both sides as to whether R v W is a constitutional right or not. But that is the point maybe. Either it is or it is not.



But there are myriads of other rulings that get overruled / paused etc.... For example from last week:

Graham Testimony on hold

The back and forth over releasing Trumps financial data is another one that is on/off ever other month. I mean really - either Trumps numbers are up for public view or they are not? What changes from one step on the judicial ladder to the next?

For me personally, it is just another reason to be skeptical of the entire system. Too much personal opinion and not enough bedrock yes/no rules as written.

The far greater problem than 'how clear the law is' (requiring interpretation) is the explosion of 'law'.

This explosion of law seem to be directly tied to the administrative state. The 'rules' from the Federal administrative regime have literally exploded in the last 40 years -- eclipsing statutory law by probably 100x.

Adding to that problem is items from the judiciary like the Chevron doctrine -- that is a ruling that says the best means for an agency to interpret rules is themselves because of their expertise, and Federal courts must defer to those rulings for the most part.

To Trump's credit, his picks, along with Alito and Thomas, have started to chip away at that monolith. This last term I think it was the West Virginia case that was the first crack in the line -- the Court ruled that in order for the EPA to leap into the fray as hard as they did on EPA regulations, they had to have an absolutely clear mandate to do so by Congress. A pretty stunning move by SCOTUS.

My opinion it isnt how clear the statutory laws are -- it is the explosion in administrative rules which are effectively laws in this society.

(08-22-2022 09:17 AM)tanqtonic Wrote:  My opinion it isn't how clear the statutory laws are -- it is the explosion in administrative rules which are effectively laws in this society.

Which is why I have proposed amending the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) to provide for:
1) All new rule-making to be subject to congressional ratification, automatically if the projected impact exceeds $1B, or upon petition by 20% of the membership of congress.
2) All administrative agencies, and all rules issued by them, to be subject to sunset review every 10 years.
3) The current scheme of adjudicating administrative disputes by in-house administrative law judges (ALJs) to be replaced with Article III administrative law courts in every federal judicial district.