| HN Mirror

Slaughter determined that agencies congress had ceded to the executive branch had control of the executive. It doesn't stop congress from directly exercising that power instead. It just says you can't play the fuck-fuck game where you pretend to create an agency in the executive branch but actually violate the constitution by trying to create a new branch.

> Slaughter determined that agencies congress had ceded to the executive branch had control of the executive.

The law Congress passed set rules requiring cause for a firing of an FTC commissioner.

It appears they now lack that power that they've had for almost a century.

Or Alito's new "history and tradition" test, invented out of whole cloth to take out abortion but now being applied to all sorts of things Congress does.

Statutes don't supersede the constitution and passing one doesn't create that power.

> Statutes don't supersede the constitution…

"We can make rules the President has to follow" does not supersede the Constitution.

galangalalgol 29 days ago

It obviously depends on what rules they make. They can't make a rule creating a body of government employees that decide the substance of rules (not just implementation details), and then also has armed officers to enforce those rules, with its own judges to have hearings specific to those rules. Whether you heard ice or atf when you read that, they both fit. I like Gorsuch's opinion. He clearly calls out this danger of a half step of saying the president has complete control of the executive without also ruling the agencies themselves are unconstitutional. Realistically though instantly removing all those agencies would mean chaos. The court can't rule how to fix something, only that the rock brought before them is the wrong rock. The telling bit would be if someone then brings them a case where the removal of the ftc leadership has resulted in the agency not enforcing the laws as written. If they then side with the congress I would give them the benefit of my doubt. But I do also feel like their positions, while correct, are correct only out of the context of their environment.

> It obviously depends on what rules they make.

Today, the Court ruled that Congress can make the Federal Reserve an independent agency, but not the FTC. Same day, same justice!

What are the rules, exactly?

In this case, it did, that's why SCOTUS ruled against it.

SCOTUS does not enjoy papal infallibility. They fuck up.

(Or act maliciously, as when Alito invented the new "history and tradition" test.)

dmitrygr 29 days ago

> can't setup genuinely independent agencies

The US constitution lays out three AND ONLY three branches of government. The congress cannot create a fourth without an amendment. If they create an agency in the executive branch, by definition it reports to the head of the executive.

> The congress cannot create a fourth without an amendment.

Sure. So explain the results of Trump v. Cook, which involve exactly that.

The same justice, on the same day, issued one opinion that says Congress can't put limits on firing FTC chairs, and another that Congress can put limits on firing Fed board members.

dmitrygr 29 days ago

Did you read the opinion? SCOTUS only said a process was broken by a step being missed. Trump can still fire Cook, just has to let Cook have a hearing about it. Nowhere that I see did they say Trump must at all consider what Cook says at said hearing or be bound by it in any way - only that she must be able to get a hearing. This does not seem to contradict his authority to fire her. Just like your job's HR will gladly give you a hearing about terminating you, even if their minds are all made up and nothing you say will change a thing.

Yes, I read both opinions, and am left wondering why "out of step with the statute Congress enacted and our nation’s tradition of central banking protected from political interference" applied to one and not the other.

SCOTUS ruled if something is in the executive branch, POTUS can fire the commissioner. Congress and everyone else explicitly is saying the FTC is in the executive branch, which puts it in a completely different question that regarding the federal reserve.

The ruling in Slaughter was not that president can fire commissioners no matter what branch they are in. It was never established in Trump v Cook that the federal reserve lies in the executive branch.

Your attempt here to falsely portray an inconsistency that doesn't exist. It's a different question as to whether the federal reserve is in the executive branch. You'll have to show the federal reserve is in the executive branch if you want the same ruling to apply or claim this inconsistency.

> It was never established in Trump v Cook that the federal reserve lies in the executive branch.

But that's insane, right?

"You can make an agency the President has no control over, but you can't make one the President has some control over."