Justice Samuel Alito indicated that a decision favoring Slaughter might enable Congress to transform various executive branch entities into “multi-member commissions with members shielded from plenary presidential removal authority.”
“I could list examples… What about Veterans Affairs? How about Interior? Labor? EPA? Commerce? Education? What am I overlooking?” Alito inquired.
“Agriculture,” Justice Neil Gorsuch replied. The official transcript highlights that Gorsuch’s reply elicited laughter.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh voiced doubts regarding the authority of independent agencies, stating, “I believe extensive delegations to unaccountable independent agencies introduce significant constitutional and real-world challenges for individual liberty.” He mentioned that the court’s stance with “the major questions doctrine in recent years” has been to “ensure that we are not simply assuming that Congress has entrusted major questions of political or economic importance to independent agencies, or to any agencies, for that matter.”
Kagan: President would have “uncontrolled, unchecked power”
In contrast to the unanimous Humphrey’s Executor, the Slaughter case seems to be on track for a divided ruling among the court’s conservative and liberal justices. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson remarked on the “dangers and real-world implications” of the Trump administration’s stance.
“My perception was that independent agencies exist because Congress has determined that certain issues, matters, and areas should be managed in this manner by nonpartisan experts, indicating that Congress values expertise concerning aspects of the economy and transportation and the various independent agencies we have,” Jackson stated. “Thus, a president coming in and dismissing all the scientists, doctors, economists, and Ph.D.s and replacing them with loyal supporters and individuals lacking knowledge is not truly in the best interest of the American populace. This reflects what I believe Congress’s policy decision signifies when it states that these particular agencies will not be made directly accountable to the president.”
Justice Elena Kagan stated that there has historically been a “bargain” whereby “Congress has entrusted these agencies with a substantial amount of work that does not typically fall under executive responsibilities… and they’ve allocated all that power to these agencies largely with the understanding that they are not subject to the control of one individual, the president, but rather that Congress also wields significant influence over them. If you remove a portion of this bargain, you end up with enormous, uncontrolled, unchecked power concentrated in the hands of the president.”
