Separation of powers
I have written a couple of times, here and here, about the Biden v. Nebraska case where the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Biden Administration’s executive order forgiving certain student loan debt. I bemoaned the practice of Congress writing vague laws and allowing the executive branch agencies to fill in the blanks. Congress does this to avoid taking tough political votes. It deprives the citizens of representation, however, because the laws are effectively being made by unelected bureaucrats. This week, the online publication Roll Call has a good piece on the issue. You can read it here.
More separation of powers
The U.S. Supreme Court this week released a list of cases it has agreed to hear next term. One of those cases is Consumer Financial Protection Bureau v. Community Financial Services Association. The CFPB is a relatively new agency that has a unique funding source. The budget for the CFPB comes from fees levied on banks that are members of the Federal Reserve. The fees are collected by the Fed and disbursed to the CFPB through the U.S. Treasury, bypassing the normal Congressional appropriations process. The 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals found that this funding mechanism violates the Constitution’s Appropriations Clause, which states that, “no Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by law.” If the U.S. Supreme Court sides with the 5th Circuit, then every action taken by the CFPB since its creation twelve years ago will be thrown into question. Given the emphasis this Court places on separation of powers and textualism, this could be an interesting one.
Even more separation of powers
Yesterday, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee voted along party lines in favor of a bill to require the U.S. Supreme Court to adopt a code of ethics. With a 6 – 3 conservative majority on the Court, and particularly since the Dobbs abortion decision, the left has been advocating various actions against the Court, including efforts to pack the Court. Over the last several months, left-wing media outlets have undertaken a coordinated campaign to discredit the conservative Justices alleging unethical behavior. All of this is in conjunction with the work of Senate Democrats this week to adopt the ethics bill. The bill raises separation of powers issues. Since the Supreme Court is the highest authority in the judicial branch, who would enforce the code? Congress asserting control over the Court in this manner is likely unconstitutional, and, by the way, the U.S. Supreme Court that Senate Democrats are trying to control is the very one that would rule on the Constitutionality of the ethics bill. Furthermore, despite having control of the Senate, Senate Democrats do not have the votes to pass the bill on the floor. All of this is therefore mostly theater designed to gin up activists heading into the next Presidential election. If you are interested in being ginned up, you can read more about it here.
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