Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by sympil 493 days ago
Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.

Congress has not vested the President to appoint someone the power to do what Musk and his minions are doing.

1 comments

That sub-clause does not mean what you suggest through any reasonable statutory interpretation. And I'm not suggesting any kind of legal chessmanship here. I've simply identified for discussion a legistlative branch check on executive branch power that's expressly delineated in the Constitution.

Again... Congress doesn't decide what a so-called inferior officer has the "power to do"—merely whether the POTUS has the power to appoint said person without their advice and consent. The POTUS decides what its subordinates have the power to do. The check to such an exercise of executive power belongs to the judicial branch by way of legal challenge before a federal judge up to and including the SCOTUS.

Of course they do have such power. Each department/agency has legislation that spells out its scope. An underling in Department A doesn’t have the authority to act outside the scope of its Department A’s power/purview.