An obscure case before the Supreme Court has the potential to reshape the federal government in a fundamental way. If conservative activists get their wish, President Donald Trump — and any president that comes after him — will have even more power to bend federal agencies to his will.
The case is Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the agency that was the brainchild of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). As part of her desire to free the mandate of consumer protection from the political winds, winds that are frequently at the backs of powerful business interests, Warren ensured that the director of the bureau couldn’t be removed by the president from the post except under extraordinary circumstances. Unlike the members of the Cabinet, then, the directorship wouldn’t be expected to change hands with every new president, and a business-friendly president couldn’t remove an aggressive director without good cause.
It’s this feature of the bureau’s structure that Seila Law, a firm being investigated by the CFPB, sought to challenge in arguments before the court on Tuesday. The firm argues that the independence of the bureau from the presidency violates the Constitution. This argument relies on an idea common in conservative legal thought: that the president has sole and unmediated authority over executive branch agencies. Inherent in this authority, they say, is the power to fire executive branch officers. Continue reading.