Appeals court kicks fate of net neutrality in America further down the road

The fate of net neutrality in the US still hangs in the balance, with a decision now unlikely before the November presidential election. Back in the Before Times, the Obama administration enacted net neutrality, and the subsequent Trump White House overturned it all. In April this year, under President Biden, the US Federal …

[DS999]

It'll have to be states that enforce it

The Supreme Court's ruling about agency power has a lot of downsides, but one of the upsides is that agencies can't make rules barring states from having stricter regulations like they tried during Trump's term. If an administration wants that they'll have to get such a bill past congress, which will be just as difficult as getting net neutrality past congress.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: It'll have to be states that enforce it

The Supreme Court just does whatever Trump wants them to.

[Gene Cash]

Re: It'll have to be states that enforce it

> The Supreme Court just does whatever Trump wants them to.

He wishes.

Normally around here, Congress does the opposite of what the president wants, and the Supreme Court does whatever pisses off the largest amount of people.

[Michael Wojcik]

Re: It'll have to be states that enforce it

Trump can barely spell "Supreme Court", much less understand the cases they're hearing and tell them what to do.

Some of Trump's handlers and string-pullers might be under the impression that SCOTUS will follow their instructions, but that's unlikely even in the case of the most mendacious justices (Thomas and Alito). All of the SCOTUS judges have their own ideological and personal goals and are generally uninterested in the whims of power-brokers.

Even Kavanaugh, often seen as the most conservative of the Trump appointees, has voted with the "liberal wing" on occasion, such as Garza. And he's been less of a hard-liner on anti-abortion than both his supporters and opponents expected, though with Dobbs he voted with the majority, of course. And even after Dobbs he supported access to mifepristone in FDA v Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine.

Differences among the three Trump appointees alone is evidence enough that even that third of the court doesn't "just [do] whatever Trump wants them to do", unless you think Trump has some masterful scheme that involves his puppets disagreeing with one another. Pro tip: He doesn't. Even if he were smart enough to orchestrate something like that (and he isn't), he's far too lazy and self-involved to do it.

[James Anderson]

Rule of lawyers replaces rule of law.

To quote Niall Ferguson.

The state can pass as many laws as it likes but the party that has the deepest pockets and most lawyers prevails.

[Ken Hagan]

The state has the deepest pockets and the most lawyers. What it usually lacks is any coherent beliefs about what ought to happen. But usually does not mean always and if you are the one writing the laws then it shouldn't be a problem getting your way.

[UnknownUnknown]

I guess if the founding fathers had wanted laws against net neutrality and AR-15 semi-automatic weapons they would have had the foresight to put them in the US Constitution.

[Michael Wojcik]

The Sixth, huh?

This is pretty much the first time I can remember that something newsworthy came out of the Sixth Circuit. No doubt there have been other cases, but they certainly aren't a hotbed of controversy like the Ninth (because California), Fifth (because Texas), Eleventh (because Florida and two crazy bible states), and CAFC (because intellectual-property law).

Of course, the Sixth isn't the only relatively-quiet circuit court. I'm in the Tenth Circuit, and the only one of their decisions that I can recall offhand is the one that said women can go topless in public. Which, of course, is the Best Sort of circuit-court decision, promoting liberty, equality, and sorority.