"[T]he Court today issues a stay enabling the President to immediately discharge, without any cause, a member of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). That stay, granted on our emergency docket, is just the latest in a series. Earlier this year, the same majority, by the same mechanism, permitted the President to fire without cause members of the National Labor Relations Board, the Merits Systems Protection Board, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission."
"Congress, as everyone agrees, prohibited each of those presidential removals. See, e.g., 15 U. S. C. § 41 (barring the President from discharging FTC Commissioners except for "inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office"). Under the relevant statutes, the entities just listed are "classic independent agenc[ies]"-"'multi-member, bipartisan commission[s]' whose members serve staggered terms and cannot be removed except for good reason.""
A Supreme Court stay permits the President to immediately discharge an FTC member without cause. Earlier similar stays allowed at-will removal of members of the NLRB, MSPB, and CPSC. Statutes such as 15 U.S.C. §41 bar presidential removal of FTC Commissioners except for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance. The listed entities function as classic independent agencies: multi-member, bipartisan commissions with staggered terms and limited removal. The repeated stays have effectively handed control of those agencies to the President by enabling at-will removals. Humphrey's Executor rejected the same presidential removal claim, and reversing it would override Congress's agency-design judgments.
Read at Ars Technica
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