When the dust settles on the buckshot of related cases and they make their way to the SCOTUS, it will be confirmed that the executive branch has unilateral power to fire people working in the executive branch. If it’s constitutional, it’s de facto legal. And I think it will be at least 7-2 as well.
Do you hold the opinion that the Civil Service Reform Act is unconstitutional? What about the Reorganization Act of 1939? If the President can unilaterally fire any employee of the Executive Branch, why bother with Senate confirmation at all?
Of course it's unconstitutional. It's clearly outlined in Article 2 that the President has the power to appoint:
>> He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the 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.
Only judicial appointments are life terms and that's the only one outlined in Article 3. All other appointments are at the pleasure of the President. There's no mention of "Ambassador for Life" or "Minister until replacement is Senate confirmed" in the Constitution. For non-judicial appointments, the power to appoint includes the power to remove.
> If the President can unilaterally fire any employee of the Executive Branch, why bother with Senate confirmation at all?
To allow for autonomy of that individual at that agency. Otherwise the actions would need to roll up to the President directly requesting the said action via executive order. I see it as guardrails for when the Article 2 powers are being scaled out via long term delegation.
I'll thank you for providing the direct quote which highlights the gap between the talking point and the actual text itself.
I could see it playing out like this, except that you can't fire so many that the departmental mission enacted by congress is substantially or totally hindered.
Fire any one particular person? Maybe. Fire everyone in a department? What power does congress have if that were allowed?
Then we have rules against impoundment. That has yet to work its way through the courts; we'll see if those rules survive and have any teeth.
Strict reading of the Constitution, nothing. Our government was not set up to be efficient, more the opposite. The Founders were distrustful of government, especially a federal government over their states, so they set up a government that wasn't good at doing things.
Whether you and I still want that is a different question, but the ultimate legality of the congress not being able to compel the executive to take action seems pretty clear.
>rules against impoundment
this is congress making rules that the executive must do something, which again is not clear they have the authority to do
Those rules were passed in the 1970s. Has there been a Supreme Court decision on their validity? (Real question; I don't know.)
But if the president can decide to not spend the money, how does Congress have the power of the purse?
We did a horrible job interpreting that for 250 years if true.
Judicial branch is putting up a fight, though. But they are by design the slowest, most meticulate branch.
Thankfully, 200 years of judicial interpretation and precedent disagree with this conclusion.
And of course, America's job is not to move fast and break things. it's to be as safe and stable as possible.
>this is congress making rules that the executive must do something, which again is not clear they have the authority to do
yup, like I said. Precedent on this has been proven wrong every time. That's exactly what the judicial branch should be doing.
So conservatives said, all right, if that's the way the game is played, then we need to own the Supreme Court. And here we are.
Don't act like the game started with Reagan. It didn't. It's just that the other side was thoroughly winning before then.
I argue conservatives started it with Citizens United. Thereby making the democracit process a game of who kisses the ring of the most billionaires.
On the merits, this Court previously held that no provision of § 8468 prevented the plaintiffs' removal. See Mem. Op. at 7. First, the Court noted that “the power of removal from office is incident to the power of appointment” “absent a specific provision to the contrary.” Id. at 6 (quoting Carlucci v. Doe, 488 U.S. 93, 95 (1988) (citation omitted)). Second, the Court held that the plain text of § 8468(b), which provides only that Board members “serve for three years each” on staggered terms, does not meet that standard. Id. at 7. Third, the Court read Parsons v. United States, 167 U.S. 324 (1897), and Myers v. United States, 272 U.S. 52 (1926), to hold that term-of-office provisions, standing alone, do not confer removal protection.