The U.S. Supreme Court has had a fixation on executive branch appointment powers to federal agencies in recent years.
You may recall that In 2020, in a 5-4 decision in Seila Law v. CFPB, a case in which the petitioner challenged the constitutionality of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the Supreme Court agreed with the petitioner that the “for cause” restriction on the President’s power to remove the CFPB Director violates the Constitution’s separation of powers, the court concluded that the unconstitutional “for cause” removal restriction could be severed from the rest of the law that created the CFPB. As such, the CFPB was permitted to stand, albeit now with a director subject to removal at the will of the President.
There have been several such cases since then. On Wednesday, in Collins v. Yellen, the Court held that the Recovery Act’s restriction on the President’s power to remove the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Director is unconstitutional. At the head of the Agency, Congress installed a single Director, removable by the President only “for cause.”
President Biden wasted little time in making use of this decision. Reuters reports, Biden ousts housing finance chief after U.S. Supreme Court ruling:
President Joe Biden on Wednesday fired the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency who had been appointed by his predecessor Donald Trump, acting hours after the U.S. Supreme Court expanded presidential powers to make it easier to oust the agency chief.
The justices, in the 7-2 decision, upheld part of a lower court’s ruling that the FHFA’s structure was unconstitutional under the separation of powers doctrine that distributes authority among the government’s three branches because its lone director was insufficiently accountable to the president.
Biden, a Democrat, quickly removed agency chief Mark Calabria, who had been appointed by the Republican Trump. Calabria was confirmed by the Senate in 2019 to serve a five-year term.
Calabria said in a statement he respects the Supreme Court ruling and Biden’s authority to remove him.
Late on Wednesday, FHFA announced that Biden had appointed Sandra Thompson as the agency’s acting director. Thompson has served as the agency’s deputy director of the Division of Housing Mission and Goals since 2013, FHFA said.
A White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity prior to the Thompson announcement, said Biden would name a replacement “who reflects the administration’s values.”
The Supreme Court ruling, in line with a similar 2020 decision concerning the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), gives presidents the authority to remove the agency’s chief at any time. The court in the CFPB case ruled that the agency’s single-director structure was unconstitutional, deciding that a president should be able to fire its director at any time.
The Court’s decision in Collins v. Yellen regarding the Federal Housing Finance Agency director could also open the door for President Joe Biden to replace Social Security Commissioner Andrew Saul.
Huffington Post reports, Supreme Court Decision Could Doom Trump Holdovers At Social Security:
A new Supreme Court ruling could clear the way for President Joe Biden to fire the Donald Trump appointees running the Social Security Administration.
Biden has resisted calls from prominent Democrats on Capitol Hill to fire Social Security Commissioner Andrew Saul, at least partly because federal law says the commissioner can only be fired for “neglect of duty or malfeasance in office.”
In other words, it’s not enough that the agency has angered Democrats by cutting eligibility for disability benefits and warring against the unions that represent the agency’s massive workforce.
But the Supreme Court said Wednesday that a similar restriction was unconstitutional in the case of the Federal Housing Finance Agency director, who could only be removed “for cause” before their term ends. The White House promptly announced it would replace Mark Calabria, whom Trump appointed to a five-year term in 2018.
In its Collins v. Yellen decision, written by Justice Samuel Alito, the court held Wednesday that the “removal power helps the President maintain a degree of control over the subordinates he needs to carry out his duties” and that it ensures “that these subordinates serve the people effectively and in accordance with the policies that the people presumably elected the President to promote.”
In a footnote, the court acknowledged that there are other agencies with similar leadership structures, but said “we do not comment on the constitutionality of any removal restriction that applies to their officers.” Yet it’s the second time the court said Congress couldn’t stop the president from firing an agency head after having decided last year that Donald Trump could replace the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
In a concurring opinion on Wednesday, Justice Elena Kagan wrote of Social Security that “a betting person might wager that the agency’s removal provision is next on the chopping block.”
President Biden needs to fire all of Trump’s anti-government appointees who were hired to hollow out the federal government from the inside, in fulfillment of the GQP talking point “government doesn’t work, and if you elect me I will prove it.” These Trump holdovers in the government will only sabotage the Biden administration’s policy goals. Biden is entitled to have his people in charge. Sedition Party appointees need to be purged from the government.
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Thank you for the article. It shows this Supreme Court can make sense sometimes. The exec. branch is massive and I don’t know if any person can ever manage it. But the president whoever she or he is needs to be able to be given the opportunity to TRY to manage the exec. br. Only with this power which the Constitution provides but Congress may not like, does the president have the “possible” capability to do what she/he said in their campaign that they would try to do when elected.
All that said the exec. br. now has too much power because the Congressional branch refuses to staff up so that the Congressional branch can do it one of it main task which is to create and pass an annual federal budget.
Congress has been failing in this responsibility for years.
Today our Nation is stopped dead in the water because 1. It can not pass timely budgets and 2. because it cannot pass legislation because of the Senate self imposed filibuster rule.
America is falling to it knees and if we don’t, as a Nation, get smart soon our short 230+ year experiment in “democracy” may be finished.
Peace! Buzz Davis, Vets for Peace in Tucson