Article II, Section 1, Clause 1:
The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America...
In 1926, Chief Justice and former President William Taft addressed the President’s removal power in Myers v. United States, holding that the executive power includes the power to remove Executive Branch officers. Myers concerned a law that required the Senate’s advice and consent for the President to remove a Postmaster from office. In a 6-3 decision for the President, Chief Justice Taft reasoned that the removal power was necessary for the President to fulfill his constitutional duty to enforce the laws. Absent power to hold subordinate Executive Branch officers accountable by removing them if necessary, the President would not be able to fulfill his obligation to take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed. Holding the removal power to be constitutionally vested in the President the Myers Court observed that powers vested in Congress must be strictly construed in favor of powers retained by the President.
Notwithstanding Humphrey’s Executor and Morrison, the Court later clarified that the President’s removal power is the rule rather than the exception. In its 2010 decision, Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Accounting Oversight Board, the Court held unconstitutional a statute that structured a government office to restrict the President’s ability to remove a principal officer and also restrict the principal officer’s ability to remove an inferior officer who determines the policy and enforces the laws of the United States. The Court explained: The President cannot ‘take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed’ if he cannot oversee the faithfulness of the officers who execute them. Here the President cannot remove an officer who enjoys more than one level of good-cause protection, even if the President determines that the officer is neglecting his duties or discharging them improperly.
In its 2020 decision in Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Financial Protection Board (CFPB), the Court rejected the proposition that Humphrey’s Executor establish a general rule that Congress may impose ‘modest’ restrictions on the President’s removal power. Examining the CFPB, the Court noted that it had a single Director, who was insulated from the President’s removal power and accountable to no one. Describing the President’s role in the constitutional structure as the link that makes the administrative state answerable to the people, Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority, stated:
Finding the CFPB Director’s protection from removal to be unconstitutional, the Court stated: In our constitutional system, the executive power belongs to the President, and that power generally includes the ability to supervise and remove the agents who wield executive power in his stead.
In Bowsher v. Synar the Court held that Congress had unconstitutionally vested executive functions in a Legislative Branch official through the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Deficit Control Act....The Court stated: Interpreting a law enacted by Congress to implement the legislative mandate is the very essence of ‘execution’ of the law. Because Congress could remove the Comptroller General from office, it could not delegate executive powers to him. The Court stated: By placing the responsibility for execution of the [Act] in the hands of an officer who is subject to removal only by itself, Congress in effect has retained control over the execution of the Act and has intruded into the the executive function.
In Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, the Court held that Congress could not legislate to grant citizens not suffering particularized injuries standing to sue the federal government to compel its compliance with congressional mandates. Such a law, the Court reasoned, would allow Congress to transfer the President’s Take Care Clause duty to the Judiciary.
The Court emphasized the importance of the separation of powers in Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Financial Protection Board (CFPB) in which the Court held that Congress encroached on Executive Branch powers when it limited the President’s ability to remove the head of an independent agency to for cause removal. In Seila, the Court noted that Congress had vest[ed] significant governmental power in the hands of a single individual accountable to no one. Similarly, in Collins v. Yellen, the Court ruled that Congress could not restrict the President’s authority to remove the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which had a structure similar to the CFPB.
