A month into President Trump 's second term, lawyers for the Republican administration seem intent on provoking a legal fight to overturn a 90-year-old Supreme Court decision known as Humphrey's Executor that has been critical to the development of the modern US government. Humphrey's Executor ushered in an era of powerful independent federal agencies charged with regulating labor relations, employment discrimination, the airwaves, and much more. But that decision has long rankled conservative legal theorists who argue that the Constitution vests immense power in the president and who reject limits imposed by Congress. The AP runs through some basics:
- Who's Humphrey? Born during the Civil War, William Humphrey became a Republican member of Congress from Washington state. He was appointed to the Federal Trade Commission by President Calvin Coolidge and reappointed by President Herbert Hoover, both Republicans. A few months after taking office in 1933, Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt sought Humphrey's resignation, preferring his own choice at an agency that would have a lot to say about the New Deal.
- FDR's move: When Humphrey refused, Roosevelt fired him, despite the provision of law allowing the president to remove a commissioner only for "inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office." After Humphrey died the next year, the person charged with administering his estate, Humphrey's executor, sued for back pay. The justices ruled unanimously that the law establishing the FTC was constitutional and that FDR's action was improper.
- The question: Can agencies inside the government act with independence or is the entire government an extension of the personality of the chief executive? That was the essential question in Humphrey's Executor, said New York University law professor Noah Rosenblum. "The entire court came down decisively in favor of the former," Rosenblum said, noting the decision was delivered at a time when authoritarian governments held sway in Germany, Italy, and the Soviet Union.
- Countering view: But supporters of the president's broad ability to fire officials say the independence is illusory and not supported by the Constitution. They point to the structure of Article 2, which gives the president executive power and commands that he "take care that the laws be faithfully executed." The Supreme Court in 1935 was simply wrong, said Chad Squitieri, a Catholic University law professor. "It's here we start to see the constitutionally mistaken idea of so-called independent agencies begin to take root," he said.
Read the
full story for more modern court decisions on the principle, and what may come next.
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