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zataomm  4mo ago (text post)   5362 thread views

Colorado Supreme Court Thread

Link to the decision

I don't know to what extent there are established precedents for when a topic is worthy of a mega-thread, but this decision seems like a big deal to me with a lot to discuss, so I'm putting this thread here as a place for discussion. If nobody agrees then I guess they just won't comment.

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My understanding is that basically the reason we don't do that anymore is that as the federal positions mattered more, the state legislature elections turned into proxy elections for the federal positions and the state issues were getting ignored. If you're going to have an indirect system for selecting the federal positions, you would probably want to either (1) keep it separate from state elections or (2) decide to go even harder on giving power to the federal government (so it doesn't matter as much if the state legislatures aren't governing).

How about (3) - go back on giving all power to the federal government? If most issues are state or local issues, because the federal constitution's short allowlist is respected, you pretty much have to pay attention to non-federal candidates.

That ship sadly sailed

It’s not just that past precedence and the current Overton window has caused it to sail, but in the modern world I do not even believe it’s possible.

Technology has made the world a smaller place. Having this big federal government that can manage all these global forces has become necessary.

What some scientist mixes up in a lab will come to hurt you on the other side of the globe. Along with all the wealth Americans got useful from global trade.

I’m trying to think of what America could be if it didn’t have a big federal government managing all these policies and my best guess is like Argentina which was largely locked out of global trade due to their currency being awful. Also poorer because modern industry scale abilities is much higher than a few million person state which they haven’t hit that scale. Poor in nominal terms but everyone does say it feels wealthier on the ground.

On the flip side, the federal system enabled some states (eg Florida, Georgia) to show that the covid restrictions were nonsense. That is, despite the world getting smaller local control still allowed for so called different laboratories enabling a better outcome compared to a bet it all on black approach.

All we need is a slightly sane judiciary branch to revisit Wickard v. Filburn. From there most federal laws would be rightly determined to be unconstitutional.

I think if we just took the takings clause seriously that would be better than overturning Wickard. And honestly, the judiciary is starting to take takings more seriously b

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