On the legality of DOGE
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wrote on 20 Jan 2025, 18:33 last edited by
Haven’t found the article yet, just this screenshot, but I have a feeling we’re all going to get to know the acronym FACA real soon.
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wrote on 20 Jan 2025, 19:14 last edited by
So exciting, a prospect for a win against orange man. Never mind the people who voted for our current POTUS, Donald Trump, were excited about DOGE, and it's not demonstrably a terrible idea, we should still try to find any obscure legal theory to flush it. Because that's what we Trump haters do.
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wrote on 20 Jan 2025, 19:28 last edited by jon-nyc
Laws are sticky that way. Our system is inherently conservative.
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So exciting, a prospect for a win against orange man. Never mind the people who voted for our current POTUS, Donald Trump, were excited about DOGE, and it's not demonstrably a terrible idea, we should still try to find any obscure legal theory to flush it. Because that's what we Trump haters do.
wrote on 20 Jan 2025, 19:28 last edited by@Horace said in On the legality of DOGE:
it's not demonstrably a terrible idea
They're against government efficiency?
What?
Next they'll be against motherhood.
Oh, wait.
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wrote on 20 Jan 2025, 19:32 last edited by
@jon-nyc said in On the legality of DOGE:
Laws are sticky that way. Our system is meant to be very conservative.
Laws are way more ambiguous than you give them credit for when you're in rhetorician mode. Clarence Thomas made a very clear argument that Jack Smith appointment was illegal. How far did that go? It's one SCOTUS justice's opinion. Let's see how far this goes. What it is not, or so I predict, is a slam dunk illegality.
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wrote on 21 Jan 2025, 04:07 last edited by
I am not sure why setting up what is basically a committee to look at government efficiency would be illegal?
I always have assume that the "DOGE" would make suggestions, but did not really have any power to do stuff directly.
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wrote on 21 Jan 2025, 04:13 last edited by
Maybe it should be changed to ROGE. Recommendations of Government Efficiency.
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wrote on 21 Jan 2025, 07:00 last edited by
It's the Church Commission, in essence. The lawsuits are frivolous.
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wrote on 21 Jan 2025, 11:17 last edited by
@89th said in On the legality of DOGE:
Maybe it should be changed to ROGE. Recommendations of Government Efficiency.
It's always sounded rather Pythonesque to me. The Government Department for reducing Government Departments.
How about calling it the Department of Surrealism? Elon Musk could sport a nice bowler hat.
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I am not sure why setting up what is basically a committee to look at government efficiency would be illegal?
I always have assume that the "DOGE" would make suggestions, but did not really have any power to do stuff directly.
wrote on 21 Jan 2025, 11:19 last edited by@taiwan_girl said in On the legality of DOGE:
I am not sure why setting up what is basically a committee to look at government efficiency would be illegal?
There’s nothing illegal about it, they just need to follow certain transparency and accountability rules. Public meetings, publicly accessible records, open to public input, etc. Also there’s some requirements about balanced representation to prevent the undue influence of individual interest groups, etc. Nothing bad really. And other external commissions have followed these rules since it was enacted in the Nixon administration.
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wrote on 21 Jan 2025, 11:20 last edited by
@Jolly said in On the legality of DOGE:
It's the Church Commission, in essence. The lawsuits are frivolous.
It isn’t frivolous. The Church commission followed FACA.
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@taiwan_girl said in On the legality of DOGE:
I am not sure why setting up what is basically a committee to look at government efficiency would be illegal?
There’s nothing illegal about it, they just need to follow certain transparency and accountability rules. Public meetings, publicly accessible records, open to public input, etc. Also there’s some requirements about balanced representation to prevent the undue influence of individual interest groups, etc. Nothing bad really. And other external commissions have followed these rules since it was enacted in the Nixon administration.
wrote on 21 Jan 2025, 11:21 last edited by@jon-nyc said in On the legality of DOGE:
@taiwan_girl said in On the legality of DOGE:
I am not sure why setting up what is basically a committee to look at government efficiency would be illegal?
There’s nothing illegal about it, they just need to follow certain transparency and accountability rules. Public meetings, publicly accessible records, open to public input, etc. Also there’s some requirements about balanced representation to prevent the undue influence of individual interest groups, etc.
Elon doesn't strike me as the sort of person who's particularly good at that tiresome balance and accountability stuff.
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wrote on 21 Jan 2025, 11:24 last edited by jon-nyc
No he doesn’t. My guess is they’ll come up with some genius theory that as long as they never call themselves an ‘advisory committee’ it doesn’t apply to them and the courts will giggle.
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No he doesn’t. My guess is they’ll come up with some genius theory that as long as they never call themselves an ‘advisory committee’ it doesn’t apply to them and the courts will giggle.
wrote on 21 Jan 2025, 12:26 last edited by Doctor Phibes@jon-nyc said in On the legality of DOGE:
No he doesn’t. My guess is they’ll come up with some genius theory that as long as they never call themselves an ‘advisory committee’ it doesn’t apply to them and the courts will giggle.
That would set them up for what is now apparently being described as a visit to pound town.
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@Jolly said in On the legality of DOGE:
It's the Church Commission, in essence. The lawsuits are frivolous.
It isn’t frivolous. The Church commission followed FACA.
wrote on 21 Jan 2025, 12:47 last edited by@jon-nyc said in On the legality of DOGE:
@Jolly said in On the legality of DOGE:
It's the Church Commission, in essence. The lawsuits are frivolous.
It isn’t frivolous. The Church commission followed FACA.
FACA wasn't codified until just a few years ago. And many view it as unconstitutional as it applies to the Executive Branch.
I don't think Trump will mind taking this to SCOTUS at all. Be careful what you sue for...
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wrote on 21 Jan 2025, 13:16 last edited by
It was signed into law right after my 4th birthday.
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wrote on 21 Jan 2025, 13:19 last edited by jon-nyc
By the way a useful mental exercise is to imagine if, four years ago, President Biden had established the Department of Government Equity, co-led by Ibrahm X Kendi and Nicole Hannah Jones, with the mission of bringing racial and gender equity to every aspect of government policy.
Would you want them to be transparent? Publish who they met with and when? Document their meetings and findings and decisions?
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By the way a useful mental exercise is to imagine if, four years ago, President Biden had established the Department of Government Equity, co-led by Ibrahm X Kendi and Nicole Hannah Jones, with the mission of bringing racial and gender equity to every aspect of government policy.
Would you want them to be transparent? Publish who they met with and when? Document their meetings and findings and decisions?
wrote on 21 Jan 2025, 13:43 last edited by@jon-nyc said in On the legality of DOGE:
By the way a useful mental exercise is to imagine if, four years ago, President Biden had established the Department of Government Equity, co-led by Ibrahm X Kendi and Nicole Hannah Jones, with the mission of bringing racial and gender equity to every aspect of government policy.
Would you want them to be transparent? Publish who they met with and when? Document their meetings and findings and decisions?
What I want and what is constitutional are two different things. I don't like the blanket pardons Biden gave out, but I don't see where anything can be done about them.
The power of the Executive is the power of the Executive.
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By the way a useful mental exercise is to imagine if, four years ago, President Biden had established the Department of Government Equity, co-led by Ibrahm X Kendi and Nicole Hannah Jones, with the mission of bringing racial and gender equity to every aspect of government policy.
Would you want them to be transparent? Publish who they met with and when? Document their meetings and findings and decisions?
wrote on 21 Jan 2025, 14:28 last edited by@jon-nyc said in On the legality of DOGE:
By the way a useful mental exercise is to imagine if, four years ago, President Biden had established the Department of Government Equity, co-led by Ibrahm X Kendi and Nicole Hannah Jones, with the mission of bringing racial and gender equity to every aspect of government policy.
Would you want them to be transparent? Publish who they met with and when? Document their meetings and findings and decisions?
Does every DEI office in every government department act that way? This seems to be a "useful mental exercise" only for those who believe a "department of government equity" would be a novel initiative that doesn't already exist as a distributed system of 1000s of DEI cells in thousands of departments. Just as, in Biden's time, almost all large corporations had such a department.
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wrote on 21 Jan 2025, 14:33 last edited by
You’re missing the point. FACA governs external groups staffed by non-governmental employees. Government departments have their own transparency and accountability rules, for what they’re worth.