Fcc Chair Suggests Agency Isn't Independent, Word Cut From Mission Statement

In this case, Trump is easily bought and isn't very concerned with governing himself (compared to playing golf or designing ballrooms). With this in mind, even people outside the executive branch, or even the USA are benefiting.

U.S. Marshals used to belong to the judicial branch, and were hired by the district courts. In the 1960s, they were moved to the executive branch, under the Justice Department. This wasn't controversial at the time. The court system wasn't set up to train and manage the marshals. But the effect was that the courts lost their independent muscle.

[1] https://apnews.com/article/trump-supreme-court-copyright-off...

Because the constitution explicitly grants the president absolute executive power over executive branch (government) of which FCC is part of. If government is a company then president is CEO and can do anything he wants to do.

Of course people can argue about the meaning so ultimately the arbiter of what constitution mean is Supreme Court.

And recently there were several lawsuits in the vain "the president can't do THAT" and while federal judges said "indeed, he can't" and issued injunctions, they were pretty much overturned by higher court or Supreme Court, re-affirming that president does in fact has control of executive branch.

And if you want to game this: if this wasn't true, congress could completely defang the powers of the president by making every government agency (IRS, FBI, FTC etc.) "independent" and de facto giving the power to unelected beaurocrats away from elected president.

And why should you care about this?

Because every 4 years you can vote for a different president.

You can't vote for the head of FCC.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers_v._United_States

That is true of all branches of the government, not just the executive.

Article I courts arguably exercise judicial power independently of the Article III judges.

But if you want to go down the separation of power route, you'll need to break up many federal agencies to cleanly separate their legislative and judicial functions from their executive duties. That was the basis of Humphreys Excecutor -- which btw was decided by largely the same court as in Myers. Humphreys (and later in Morrison v Olson) recognized that federal agencies can in practice perform "quasi-legislative" and "quasi-judicial" functions, not merely law enforcement duties. There is for example a body of law governing rulemaking by agencies. Separation of powers should prevent a president laying claim to all three.

Even CJ Roberts observed during the oral arguments of Trump v Slaughter that an agency's functions might span all three categories of government power -- executive, legislative, judicial -- to various degrees.

Actually, there are three early examples of independent agencies, though note that until the modern administrative state emerged in the late 19th century the Federal government was never so hierarchically organized as to admit to an "agency" as we understand that term today.

First was the 1790 sinking fund, a nominally executive committee created by Congress to pay down the national debt, which which could override the President's decision regarding payments. Second was the office of the comptroller, which for strongly shielded from executive control. These two examples are presumably why in a recent emergency docket decision there's dicta exclaiming that Federal Reserve independence was not and in decisions to come would not be implicated by what SCOTUS (impliedly) has coming down the pipeline. Both of these examples would later be construed as examples of "quasi-legislative" executive agencies, rooted in Congress' power of the purse.

Third was the de facto independence of federal district attorneys. Until 1820 they were answerable to nobody, except in theory to Congress by impeachment. This would be an original example of "quasi-judicial" executive officers.

There are more, albeit less clear-cut practices, including the situation in Marbury v Madison. Also note that the removal power is distinct from the broader contemporary unitary executive theory, which aims to place even more plenary power in the presidency than merely removal (which is just the hook to prove the larger theory), and therein lies much more complexity, which is why the whole debate has been muddled from the very beginning of the US--the Founders and early Congresses discussed it explicitly, but only showing there was in fact no consensus. But I think the black letter law annunciated by Humphrey's Executor, that Congress can in principle shield quasi-legislative and quasi-judicial agencies from the president, is spot on when trying to square constitutional text, constitutional theory, and historical practice. Though, there's a good argument that over time the courts have not been vigilant enough in cabining Humphrey's Executor, which is presumably why Robert's recently politely suggested that Humphrey's Executive as applied today does not hew closely to the legal principle it expounded, and perhaps even applied it's own principle wrongly.

There are scores of law review articles discussing the subject going back well over a century, but a really good one written not long after the Reagan-era debates is "The President and the Administration" by none other than Cass Sunstein and (apropos HN) Lawrence Lessig, https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/journal_articles/7779/

That article is the most honest review of the debate I've read; perhaps too honest and earnest because they really pull their punches. (Perhaps that's partly because of Lessig's background in legal history and his reluctance to make absolute declarations about historical matters?) It gives significant attention to Myers, FWIW, including agreeing (IIRC) that it was correctly decided.

And if you haven't read this already, here's the contemporaneous strong-man argument for independent agencies, Christine Kexel Chabot, Is the Federal Reserve Constitutional? An Originalist Argument for Independent Agencies, 96 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1 (2020), https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/ndlr/vol96/iss1/1

Judicial review of executive actions is stronger and more frequent than its ever been. Congressional power of the purse is secure. And the REINS Act (not yet passed) would require Congress to approve major agency rules before they take effect

It has little to do with political parties even though originalist thought is more aligned with conservative social and political thinking and pragmatists are more aligned with progressive thinking.

The shame of this is, it is in defiance of the design of the Founders, and will take a LONG time to correct, if we don't descent into authoritarianism before it is corrected.

Which have been packed by Federalist ideologues for years. The "court" (as if its some one whole) isn't some nueatral 3rd party arbiter of the "law".

I don’t think you’ve thought through your point or you are desperately struggling to get through the cognitive dissonance. Nothing has indicated that SCOTUS will Trump. Their history so far has been heads Trump wins, tails Trumps enemy loses.

Like they ruled Biden couldn’t cancel student loans but then bend over backward to let Trump do as he pleases.

You’re getting a king, not a return of power to the states

You're not Antonin Scalia, you didn't earn it- have some humility.