The Supreme Court embraced the “unitary executive” legal theory on Monday, finding that President Trump could fire without cause a commissioner on the Federal Trade Commission.
In Trump v. Slaughter, the Supreme Court ruled that the president has the constitutional power to discharge at will commissioners of the Federal Trade Commission — and heads of numerous other agencies, such as the National Labor Relations Board and the Federal Communications Commission. These agencies are supposed to be independent from the President. Some legal experts believe this decision is a mistake as the Constitution does not give the President sole authority but others feel this was the right decision in that the the Constitution elaborately restricts the president’s appointment power but says nothing about dismissing executive branch officials.
Constitutional expert and attorney Robert McWhirter joins “Arizona Horizon” to discuss the theory and explain its consequences.
McWhirter explained why the executive gaining too much power is worrisome.
“In the Trump administration, they’re pushing this strong unitary theory. And frankly, I got to be frank about this, I find that dangerous. Whether it’s a Republican president or a Democrat president, you don’t want the executive to have that much power. The framers didn’t want the executive to have that much power,” McWhirter said.
Rogers expressed confusion as to why the President can fire an FTC commissioner, but can’t do the same to governors of the Federal Reserve.
“John Roberts, in writing that, did say in passing, ‘Oh, by the way, the Fed is different.’ But we don’t know why the Fed is different. It could be because the Fed is much further back, like the First Bank of the United States. (The Supreme Court) can make some argument like that. But on its face, it’s pretty hard to say how these two things are different. Other than maybe this court doesn’t even want to trust Donald Trump with the economy and the Fed,” McWhirter said.
