Trump v. Slaughter · ¶194

Fumbling for a response, the majority asserts that there is no constitutional difference between a rule against congressional participation in removals, on the one hand, and a rule against tenure protections, on the other. See ante, at 30 (arguing that these are “one and the same”). That is not how the Court has understood matters. The Court has long distinguished between impermissible efforts by Congress to “reserve for itself the power of removal of an officer charged with the execution of the laws except by impeachment” (the issue decided in 1789), and the permissible “power of Congress to limit the President’s powers of removal of a” principal officer. Bowsher, 478 U. S., at 724– 726. “Madison’s position ultimately prevailed” in “urg[ing] rejection of a congressional role in the removal of Executive Branch officers,” id., at 723, but Humphrey’s “involved an issue not presented” by…

slip opinion, revised 7/07/26
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