alt Hacker NewsWhat the parent said:
“If the law says the President cannot fire someone, or interfere in an agency’s work, then the President cannot.”
This is, indeed, flatly incorrect. Congress cannot pass a law requiring that the Secretary of State or Defense or Treasury be fired only for cause. The SCOTUS case knocking it down would likely be 9-0.
“Congress writes the laws and can make them say whatever they want” totally ignores separation-of-powers concerns that the Constitution and its guardians in Article III courts take very seriously.
> Congress cannot pass a law requiring that the Secretary of State or Defense or Treasury be fired only for cause. The SCOTUS case knocking it down would likely be 9-0.
No one is saying Congress can restrict the President from firing political appointees or his Cabinet.
We're talking about the quasi-legislative or quasi-judicial agencies here. In the case you cite, Humphrey was on the FTC, and Roosevelt tried to fire him. The Court said the President couldn't him because Congress wrote it in the law. That's exactly what the other poster was saying, so how are they flatly incorrect?