Originally published at: SCOTUS Officially Kills Precedent that Protected Agencies from a Vengeful President — But with Special Federal Reserve Carveout - TPM – Talking Points Memo
The Supreme Court cast its long-telegraphed death blow to independent agencies Monday, confirming that the president can fire at-will civil servants that were meant to be insulated from political backlash. In a second opinion, though, the Court gave the Federal Reserve a special carveout from this new reality. The odd baby-splitting in the combination of…
Pass legislation ending all at-will employment in the federal gov’t and requiring contracts that include the protections from political bullshit. Actually, fuck it. They’ll just overrule anything because the goal is killing the federal gov’t in favor of an imperial presidency.
Country’s over. The question is and has been for the past several years: what do we building on its grave?
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Why would any knowledgeable, educated and capable person consider a federal civil servant position? More importantly, we can now look forward to complete agency overhauls every 4 to 8 years purging institutional knowledge and expertise, radically revised policies and regulations (bad for business, bad for local government), and an overall downward force on the government’s ability to govern.
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The Court reconciled these two decisions using the precedent established in the case of Fuck You v. Because Reasons.
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THE GOAL. They want it to kill federal employment to kill the federal gov’t.
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The lead is misleading. The Slaughter case does not “confirm that the president can fire at-will civil servants that were meant to be insulated from political backlash.” Rather, it held that in the case of members of independent agencies who are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate – Commissioners and Board members – Congress’ efforts to limit the president’s ability to fire them is a violation of the constitution’s separation of powers. (Why the Fed Board members are different is hard to discern, other than the conservative justices were nervous about bringing on a recession, which might affect their pensions). The ruling does not apply to ordinary civil servants, who do not make policy but merely implement it as directed and who cannot be fired except for misconduct or poor performance and who are entitled to an appeals process.
I agree that the two decisions issued today are unfortunate and hard to fathom, but they do not apply to the regular civil service.
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Sounds to me like the conservatives on SCOTUS have produced dueling decisions. How can one government agency be independent but another not?
Odd baby-splitting indeed that reveals what is inside their baby, pure politics.
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Oh, I cannot wait for the craven, satanic GOP to suddenly demand oversight of a Democratic president’s “overreach” when the circumstances no longer work in their favor.
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They know if Trump had full control of the Federal Reserve there’d be Weimar/Zimbabwe levels of inflation within a week.
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The Fed is different because the Fed is different. That is quite literally the Court’s distinction. There’s some peans to history and tradition, but those are just window dressing. The entire basis is simply, “Because we say so.”
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But all he has to do - my husband is civil service - is reclassify them. Whether they impact policy or not has a lot of delta.
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It looks like this Court is begging the next Democratic President to add more seats to the Court. I hope whoever it is, takes the hint.
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The coup is nearly complete.
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I don’t think the interested businesses see a disempowered federal government as bad for them. Rather, they see its action as a brake on their power and success.
Removing the federal government allows them to expand their control.
Whether or not they have the sophistication to understand the secondary consequences of the damage they’re causing is another question.
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Does the Pres even have to do that anymore? I thought there were recent moves by the executive branch that subjected all non-political employees to at-will status.
I think intellectual dishonesty obviates the need for consistency.
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Yes, so the next president would have to spend two years rebuilding the national government while using such extraordinary executive powers to create a stronger system of checks and balances, all the while remaining totally deaf to the whining of the GOP and of the corporate media. Expect a midterm reversal, and so make sure that you dislodge the MAGA movement from the levers of power.
Just writing that out makes it clear what a bear-impossible task that would be!
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PREDICTION :: When President Hard-Charging Democrat (2028) starts chopping off leftover Maga/GOP/neoConfederate heads still working in the Exec Branch, we will hear screaming about weaponization, partisanship, evil lunacy, blah blah blah. They dish but can’t take.
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OK, cool. So now the next Democrat elected President can and should immediately fire every Trump appointee to rush through their own preferred policies.
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