From the article: yes, you do. Compare the SEC's actions to a simple traffic ticket: a police officer gives you a ticket with a pre-set fine. This is like an SEC officer giving you a fine for some infraction. You can argue it out for a bit if you like, just like you can argue a ticket with the desk Sargeant (not that people do that). Age you do that, you can take it to court.

The only difference is that the experts at the SEC that you have to go through are called "administrative judges". It's kind of like a cop being called an "officer" even though they aren't like an armed forces officer at all.

Agencies that get to set policy and get to enforce policy have always bothered me. It's ripe for abuse via selective enforcement, controversy as we've seen, and promotes the expansion of federal agency budgets without a real value to the taxpayer.

It'd be better to have the "enforcement arm" of like EPA, FCC, etc be part of the justice department, whereas the "policy arm" of said organizations be controlled separately.

Separation of power.

I'd want the opposite.

At least a deciding judge is trained to be impartial. The general public are basically idiots. If you see how they make their life choices, who they vote for etc, I would not want to be judged by them. Hell even in the Netherlands which is supposed to be educated, the extreme-right fascists became the biggest party last week!

It also makes trials a big show with lawyers and prosecutors trying to exploit the weakness of playing at the jury's feelings which they aren't supposed to. No way.

Based on the title, I was assuming this was going to be about plea bargains and overbooked courts which more seriously undermine the public's right to due process imo.

This is a complicated issue but there are significant tradeoffs involved here. Intuitively, my assumption is that the effect of this action would be to kneecap regulatory agencies. This is not a legal opinion but jury trials are an enormous burden on the public and I don't think that it's unreasonable to try to avoid jury trials for many enforcement actions. I'm sure those who know the constitution and the law better than me can argue both sides of the issue, but cynically this seems part and parcel with the right wing efforts to dismantle the administrative state. While I have concerns about an overly powerful government, I am more concerned with unrestrained market forces.

This isn’t a real controversy, this is a far-right fever dream conjured by the Federalist Society. They’ve dreamed of weakening the administrative state ever since its inception under Roosevelt - that’s all this is. This “Reason” piece is just federalist propaganda, it’s not a serious piece, because this is not a serious topic.

Having seen jury trials in the west on TV and big screen and also having read about it, the idea of a jury trial scares me.

If you have a million dollars for discovery and motion practice yes. Otherwise no.

Yes! But most likely no.

Apart from the libertarian slant of the source, there is something to this, but should be narrowly confined to criminal and civil law.

Outside of these areas: Traffic courts across America, except for major cities, can be kangaroo courts after fees and fines. And, more broadly, the US has a legal system but not a justice system. Furthermore, binding arbitration is a fraudulent racket that sells the pretense of integrity and fairness but is nothing of the sort.

If people want to not be railroaded by an unfair practice, then they will have to organize, oppose it, and demand change.