As I read it[1], the plaintiffs allege that the government has overstepped its authority by using emergency powers to make new demands for information under threat of prosecution. There is a plausible argument for that position, and so a TRO is appropriate while the questions are resolved.
This is really it. A dysfunctional Congress serves to empower the Executive. And the Judicial branch only serves as a check so long as the Executive cares to follow their rulings.
This isn't just a problem if we get a malicious Executive either. If judges keep saying the Executive doesn't have some power unless Congress acts, and Congress continues to not act, then the Executive might be put in a position where they have to ignore judicial rulings in order to govern. Technically Congress can impeach, but a dysfunctional Congress isn't likely to get that one done.
Govern isn’t a verb in American Federal law severable from Acts of Congress. If Congress doesn’t act, then the President and his subordinates are not lawfully empowered to act the way they think Congress should allow them to act. That’s why they spend a lot of time trying to stretch their interpretation of previous Acts of Congress still in effect to try to justify what they want to do under the law. Sometimes they get away with it, sometimes the courts tell them “Nah, dawg.”
Also willingness to impeach is demonstrably not the problem. The resulting trials is where Congress stuffs it all up.
I’m generally of the same mind - but on the other hand if there isn’t consensus on certain policies at the national level isn’t inaction actually the right outcome?
The problem is that there usually is consensus that something should be done, especially among the public. But political infighting in congress over the last ~15 years stops any meaningful legislation from ever making it to the President's desk. Congress has been effectively abdicating more and more of their power to the executive branch.
It’s super clear they’re abdicating their responsibility and creating a stronger executive (like not passing a budget with this nonsense continuing resolution stuff).
But the public wanting something is easy to get people to agree to that they want something (better schools, better healthcare, less crime, etc.) is pretty easy, how that is accomplished (including how it’s paid for) is incredibly hard (take education does that mean: school vouchers, charter schools, bigger budgets, school testing, performance expectations for teachers, union rules, etc.?)
And maybe that's a good thing? The consensus that something should be done is dangerous. It leads to "something must be done, this is something, therefore this must be done", which is terribly flawed logic that leads to terrible things being done.
If all the proposals are brain-dead stupidity, then refusing to pass one is actually Congress doing their job.
But the political climate of the last 15 years hasn't been congress deciding nothing should be done, it's been the two parties fighting over what or how it should be done, and filibustering anything that goes against their party line.
[1]: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24440902-cryptoenerg...