Pirate's Cove

How can an agency in the Executive Branch be “independent” from the president?

Justices Overturn 1935 Precedent, Backing President’s Power to Remove Agency Heads

The Supreme Court on Monday handed President Trump a sweeping victory over the administrative state, ruling that Congress cannot shield the heads of independent regulatory agencies from presidential removal, and overturning a landmark 1935 precedent that had underpinned the modern regulatory framework for nearly a century.

The 6-3 decision in Trump v. Slaughter arose from the President’s firing of two Democratic-appointed Federal Trade Commission commissioners, Rebecca Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya, at the start of his second term. Trump cited his constitutional authority under Article II rather than any cause recognized by the FTC’s governing statute, which permits removal only for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.”

Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts concluded that the FTC’s for-cause removal protection is incompatible with the Constitution’s vesting of executive power in a single President. Officers who exercise executive power, the Court held, must remain accountable to the President — and accountability requires the ability to remove them at will.

The ruling explicitly overturned Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, which had carved out an exception to presidential removal authority for agencies exercising so-called quasi-legislative and quasi-judicial functions. The Court found that characterization had never made sense and had become increasingly untenable as the FTC’s powers expanded to cover virtually every corner of the American economy.

The decision’s reach extends well beyond the FTC, potentially exposing the leadership of dozens of independent agencies — including the SEC, CFTC, and NLRB — to at-will presidential removal.

If the POTUS doesn’t have control of an agency that what is the POTUS? The only way to shield these people is to pass a law out of the Legislative Branch and have a POTUS sign said law. Or refuse to sign but not veto, allowing it to become law with no action. The above article does briefly mention that SCOTUS held that the president has less power to fire a member of the Federal Reserve in a companion ruling, but, mostly because Lisa Cook was not given time to respond. More on that here.

And another big ruling that Trump lost

SCOTUS Rules 5-4 to Permit Counting of Mail-In Ballots that Arrive After Election Day

The Supreme Court (SCOTUS) ruled that state laws allowing for the counting of mail-in ballots after election day are not in violation of federal law, a blow to the Republican National Committee and President Donald Trump’s administration.

On Monday, SCOTUS issued a 5-4 ruling that permits states to count mail-in ballots — sent on or before election day — that are received by state election officials after election day.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote the majority’s opinion, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts as well as Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

“Two principles are important here. First, post-election-day receipt, considered on its own, does not conflict with the election-day statutes,” the Court writes:

Well, I kind of agree. If they were postmarked, and there really must be a clear, real postmark, then they should be counted per state law, since the Constitution gives states this power to set laws. I also understand this point by Alito

But if that is all that the election-day statutes require, there is no sense in which the electorate as a whole can be seen as making its choice on election day. Rather, the electorate’s choice would be made piecemeal over an extended period prior to election day, and that prospect is blatantly contrary to what the election-day statutes demand. [Emphasis added]

Election day is a specified date, not a span of multiple days. The election-day statutes require that federal elections occur on that date. Under the challenged Mississippi law, however, the collection of ballots continues for five more days, and therefore the “election” is not held until the end of that period. Because federal law requires that the election occur on election day, it preempts Mississippi’s statute. [Emphasis added]

But, unless the Court wants to rule to kill vote by mail and early voting, the laws, federal Constitution, and state Constitutions allow mail in. This will allow for challenges over postmarkes.

Read: Supreme Court Rules POTUS Has Authority To Remove “Independent Agency” Heads »