The Supreme Court has declined, for now, to hear the latest attack on the so-called administrative state. On Monday it left in place a 90-year old landmark decision that declared that presidents cannot fire members of a multi-member independent agency, except in cases of bad behavior.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission is a multi-member commission that is designed to protect the public from injuries and deaths caused by consumer products.
Consumers鈥� Research, an organization that conducts research on consumer products, sued after the CPSC denied a set of their Freedom of Information Act requests. To challenge the denial, Consumers鈥� Research challenged the structure of the commission, arguing that CPSC is unconstitutionally insulated from presidential supervision and control.
The conservative Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, by a bare majority, held that CPSC can exercise 鈥渟ubstantial executive power鈥� while insulated from the president鈥檚 supervision and control. In its opinion, the appeals court relied on a landmark 1935 Supreme Court decision which protected 鈥渢raditional independent agency鈥� members from firing at will.
Consumers鈥� Research, in the latest of dozens of recent attacks on the so-called administrative state, argued that the Fifth Circuit adopted an 鈥渆xpansive misreading鈥� of that 1935 case. But the government countered that Consumer鈥檚 Research is not regulated by the CSPC, and thus has no standing to challenge the agency鈥檚 structure.
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