> 435 is far too low for a representative democracy.

Imagine a world in which the Congressional Apportionment Amendment had been ratified in 1789. The House would have more than 6,000 members today. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Apportionment_Am...

Like things are quite partisan at the moment in the congress. You don't want dead lock, but you do want things to be somewhat difficult to change other wise you will get lots of policy, regulatory and even legal whiplash. If things change too often it could even be worse. Ideally there is some middle ground between deadlock and whip lash. Constant flux is worse than dead lock. It's even why a lot laws regarding regulation, policy ect.. have a date they became effective so people can prepare.

In theory, yes.

From a practical perspective, many of these rules are only implemented and enforceable because of the "in-house" self-adjudication framework, that operates on the presumption that it's own regs are lawfully valid, and don't have to repeatedly convince outside judges and juries to choose to enforce the sometimes absurd or overreaching rules that only make logical and legal sense to those sheltered within the bureaucratic bubble.

And they only avoid being struck from the books entirely because self-adjudication basically negates any chance of 1st-round judicial review/ scrutiny and other legal protections that are baked into Article III courts.

Which has resulted in agencies being far more aggressive with their rule making than they'd otherwise be.

Additionally, taking into account the game-theory of the framework, the upfront costs and risk vs reward put applicants at a major disadvantage, even before you take into account the effectively endless resources at the disposal of the government. Add the fact that beurocratic delay can tactically benefit an "adversarial" govt agent at little to no net cost or consequence to them personally or to the agency. while simultaneously increasing the applicant's direct application/ compliance/ litigation costs, plus costs and other risks incurred by delay of the project, costs due to govt-demanded project changes or added permitting conditions, and the uncertainty of whether the project is ultimately approved/ permitted at all.

It's not an "end of the world" ruling as some are claiming, but it will have substantial higher order effects beyond ability to impose penalties.

… those 15 cabinet secretaries employ more than 4 million people.