Trump Administration’s Position on President’s Power to Remove Commission Members
From the letter sent yesterday to Senator Richard Durbin (the ranking minority member on the Senate Judiciary Committee) by Acting Solicitor General Sarah M. Harris:
Re: Restrictions on the Removal of Certain Principal Officers of the United States …
Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 530D, I am writing to advise you that the Department of Justice has determined that certain for-cause removal provisions that apply to members of multi-member regulatory commissions are unconstitutional and that the Department will no longer defend their constitutionality. Specifically, the Department has determined that the statutory tenure protections for members of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), 15 U.S.C. 41, for members of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), 29 U.S.C. 153(a), and for members of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), 15 U.S.C. 2053(a), are unconstitutional.
In Myers v. United States, 272 U.S. 52 (1926), the Supreme Court recognized that Article II of the Constitution gives the President an “unrestricted” power of “removing executive officers who had been appointed by him by and with the advice and consent of the Senate.” Id. at 176. In Humphrey‘s Executor v. United States, 295 U.S. 602 (1935), the Supreme Court created an exception to that
Article from Reason.com
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