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Ah yes, soviets.
This is not really tractable, do we really expect people to vote in special elections for a representative to the EPA or the ATF? And for that to not be even more gamed and corrupt than Congress as it exists?
The juridictional conflicts between these mini legislatures alone seem like a nightmare. Not to mention the level of corruption that could be enabled by procedural specificity. In effect you'd end up with the exact same thing as the current technocratic state, but with even more power because they could claim to have a direct mandate from the people and even less oversight.
The outcome of devolution in the UK should caution anyone about splitting the sovereignty and therefore the responsibility of parliament.
Maybe it’s terrible idea. But when I think about the issue it feels like we are lacking what I would call a middle management legislature.
I wouldn’t advocate for direct election of “mini-legislatures”. Probably something like the mini-legislature has 46 people and any 10 congress people can join in a group to select 1 mini-legislature person. Basically 10 GOP congress people would decide whichever staff knows most about securities legislation and goes on the securities legislature congress. They have to color within the lines of larger bills and if anything they do is too radical a vote of 45% on big congress cancels it.
The alternative would be sunsetting and expecting congress to pass more bills but I just don’t see congress being capable of that.
The Chevron defense feels wrong to me with unelected administrators having too much power for my liking but if we get rid of governance like this it feels to me like a vacuum is left behind.
I think people on the left to often claim Congress doesn’t do anything so we have to do things thru Executive orders etc but I do think there could be a process for cleaning up legislation/more direction later when bills go from law to execution and issues arise.
This is kinda how independent agencies are appointed here in France, you get direction councils with a mix of MPs and appointed experts. I think it's a more pragmatic solution than what the US is doing right now, but I also don't think it's going to change the behavior of the institutions in any significant fashion.
Then again, our parliament is both more and less consequential than US' Congress in ways that are difficult to compare. I do think putting more direct power back in the hands of formal representatives would generally be a positive thing.
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