Presidents Should Not Be Able to Fire Gov. Experts
Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson argued that the president of the United States should not be allowed to fire government experts such as scientists, doctors, economists and doctors, and she asserted that doing so was “not in the best interest” of American citizens.
During the pleadings for Trump against the massacrewhile speaking to U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer, Jackson said she “doesn’t understand” why “agencies don’t answer to Congress.” Jackson emphasized that “Congress established them and can eliminate them.”
The oral arguments come after the Supreme Court in September allowed President Donald Trump to remove former Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter from office.
“I really don’t understand why agencies aren’t responding to Congress,” Jackson said. “Congress established them and can eliminate them. Congress funds them and can stop them. So to the extent that we are concerned that there is some sort of entity that is out of control and has no oversight, I guess I don’t understand that argument.”
“We would say that the hypothetical constitutional actor that controls these agencies is Congress, and that represents a huge separation of powers,” Sauer argued, as Jackson informed her that she understood.
Jackson went on to point out that Sauer’s arguments “seem to revolve around” the idea that there is “some sort of thing going on with the independent agency, and the reason the president needs to control it is because it doesn’t answer to anyone.”
Jackson continued:
I suppose I have a very different view of the dangers and practical consequences of your position than the one you explored with Justice Kavanaugh. My understanding is that independent agencies exist because Congress has decided that certain issues, certain questions, certain areas should be handled in this way by nonpartisan experts, that Congress says that expertise is important — as it relates to certain aspects of the economy, transportation, and the various independent agencies that we have. So for a president to come and fire all the scientists, doctors, economists, and doctors, and replace them with loyalists and people who know nothing, is actually not in the best interest of the citizens of the United States. These matters should not be under the control of the president. So can you talk to me about the danger of allowing, in these different areas, the president to actually control the Transportation Board and potentially the Federal Reserve, and all these other independent agencies. In these particular areas we would like to have independence, we don’t want the president to be in control. I guess what I don’t understand about your overall argument is why this determination by Congress – which makes perfect sense given its duty to protect the people of the United States, why it is subordinated to the fear that the president will not be able to control everything.
According to SCOTUSblog, the Supreme Court “has signaled that it is likely to strike down a federal law that restricts the president’s ability to fire members of the” FTC.
