Trump isn't the only reason Pestritto is optimistic about the future of representative government. The Supreme Court, he says, has over the past decade begun
"to try to turn the tables on the bureaucracy."
The Court took a major step in this direction earlier this month during oral arguments for Trump v. Slaughter, which deals with the president's ability to remove independent agency heads. The Court's conservative majority appeared to side with President Trump, who contends he had the ability to remove Rebecca Slaughter from the Federal Trade Commission.
In January, the Court will hear oral arguments in Trump v. Cook, a similar case that hinges on Trump's attempt to remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook.
"This stuff is kind of filtering up to the grownups in the judicial system," Pestritto says.
Though Pestritto is optimistic about all of these developments, he is clear that we never should have gotten to this point.
The best way to dismantle the administrative state, he says,
"would be for Congress to reverse all of the discretionary authority it has delegated to bureaucratic executive agencies."
But of course,
"they're not going to do that - that ship has sailed."
"Congress is never going to be what it should be," he says. That's a pity, because in the not-so-distant past, congressional appropriators from both parties (he names Democrat John Dingell as one example) were so bullish about protecting their own power that they would fight the bureaucracy if only for territory.
"Nowadays, ideology has transcended all of that," he says.
"So the Democrats in Congress essentially know that the bureaucrats are their proxy."
"And so, they are perfectly happy to let the bureaucrats disparage and ignore and resist congressional efforts for oversight," he adds.
"Because they understand that the bureaucracy will do the hard legislative work of legislating for the Left."
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