🚨 President Trump just fired the two unaccountable Democrat Commissioners of the Federal Trade Commission. This bold action challenges the core thesis of the Administrative State (that technocrats should be politically insulated) and challenges the incredibly errant 1935 Supreme Court case Humphrey's Executor, which helped create the Deep State 🧵 x.com/afergusonftc/s…
Throwing it back to your high school civics class: our nation was founded upon the idea that We the People get to pick our federal government: locally we elect members of Congress, states elect Senators, and nationally, we elect the President. All of the other people who work in our government are selected directly or indirectly by these elected officials. /2
Article II of the Constitution vests the power to execute the laws in its one officer, the President. For nearly the first century of the republic, the President could hire, fire, or appoint anyone who worked in Article II because the President has the sacred duty to "take care" that the laws of the US be “faithfully executed”
As the 19th Century Progressive Era took over, ivory tower elites like Woodrow Wilson and James Landis stripped the people of their power, destroyed our Separation of Powers, and concentrated power in the hands of technocratic so-called "experts," insulated from the will of the People by creating "Independent Agencies."
Why you ask? They said our Constitution was "inadequate" to address "modern problems," so they tried to rip it up. /4 x.com/VivekGRamaswam…
Why you ask? They said our Constitution was "inadequate" to address "modern problems," so they tried to rip it up. /4 x.com/VivekGRamaswam…
Who were these agencies independent of? The President and the electoral process. These agencies had "removal protections" hindering the ability of the President to remove those officials not aligned with his execution of the laws. /5
Who were these agencies independent of? The President and the electoral process. These agencies had "removal protections" hindering the ability of the President to remove those officials not aligned with his execution of the laws. /5
After a landslide election, in 1933, President Roosevelt fired FTC Commissioner William Humphrey for hindering him from discharging his duties as President and acting pursuant to his electoral mandate. (Sound familiar)? /6
In one of its worst reasoned and anti-constitutional cases, the Supreme Court held that the President had to comply with the "removal protections" limiting his ability to remove an appointee to an independent agency. Humphreys died before the Supreme Court gave its ruling, but the executor of his will sought the back pay, Humphrey's Executor. /7
Humphrey's Executor is bad law. It undermines the President's centralized authority he is granted under Article II and creates very power, unaccountable federal agencies. That is the key to this entire fight against the Administrative State, the accountability of the federal government to the electoral will of the People. /8
x.com/mrddmia/status…
x.com/mrddmia/status…
In recent years, the Supreme Court has weakened the power of the flawed Humphrey's case in its Seila Law v. CFPB and Collins v. Yellens cases, giving power back to the People's elected representatives and eliminating unaccountability in some agencies. The modern FTC has also expanded in size and scope, possibly making Humphrey’s Executor no longer good law. /9 x.com/EliNachmany/st…
Today, President Trump brought us back to where this whole thing started, the Federal Trade Commission, by removing two FTC Commissioners who stand opposed to his agenda, his electoral mandate, and will be unaccountable to our constitutionally empowered officials. /10
https://x.com/BedoyaFTC/status/1902105345545113607
This case will end up in the Supreme Court and will be one of the most important Separation of Powers cases in the last century, if not the most important. As Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on the Constitution, I will be looking into this further. I look forward to fighting alongside President Trump to dismantle the unaccountable administrative state and I urge the Supreme Court to take quick, decisive action. /END
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