What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[Zanza]

Serious question...what agencies does a typical parliamentary democracy have with heads that cannot be dismissed by the PM/head of government?

We have agencies led by "political civil servants" and those can be fired without due cause and agencies were the head is specifically independent and can only be removed for personal reasons (typically criminal behaviour), not for political reasons. I had understood that you had similar agencies to this latter type so far, but now all agencies are considered political and the administration can just replace the leadership.

Examples for the latter type in Germany are agencies similar to US agencies like EPA, CFFB, FTC and other agencies for cyber security, road traffic administration, federal statistics, meteorological office ...

So seems like we have a fairly similar setup to the United States.

[Tonitrus]

Serious question...what agencies does a typical parliamentary democracy have with heads that cannot be dismissed by the PM/head of government?

I can only speak for Norway, but we don't do the winner-takes-all thing with election. A bureaucrat is not elected or appointed, rather he or she applies for a job and gets it. Only gross incompetence or acts of criminality lead to being fired.

I wasn't thinking so much the civil servant populace as a whole (vs government agency heads)...the idea/tradition of civil servants in the US being dismissible/non-dismissible has fluctuated over the ages...we used to have a tradition of the "spoils system" more in the past, and tradition/law has chucked it away because of how terrible it is...and the growth of government over the decades means even the Trump administration probably cannot easily replace every single civil servant with an agreeable flunky (at least not immediately) outside of the top leadership.

But this is one of those rulings that, while it benefits Trump in the here-and-now, means that the next Dem president will just need to waste time cleaning house as well.  It is indeed an overall loss.

[Sheilbh]

Serious question...what agencies does a typical parliamentary democracy have with heads that cannot be dismissed by the PM/head of government?

Slightly depends on role/position.

Broadly speaking there's a "public appointments process" for quangoes (quasi-autonomous non-government organisations) which forms a lot of the administrative state and range from governor of the BofE, to chair of the BBC down to very technical advisory bodies. Basically it is a bit like an administrative version of the process for appointing judges (although the judicial process is more insulated/external of government). Being Britain and quangoes there is a quango that regulates this The Commissioner for Public Appointments basically sets out the requirements in a Governance Code.

The roles are appointed and the relevant government department is responsible for running the recruitment and to do that they will set up an "advisory assessment panel". Positions must be advertised and for senior/difficult ones headhunters may be used. After the deadline applications are sifted and a short list produced by the civil service.

The shortlist is then interviewed by a panel which is typically chaired by a senior civil servant within the relevant department. The panel also typically includes a representative from the relevant quango and must include a senior independent member (so independent of both the department and the quango) who is not politically active. As well as forming part of the interview panel they have a duty to notify the Commissioner of any material breaches of the Code. They may have other stakeholder or independent members. It really depends on the role - Governor of the BofE will have a fairly fulsome panels while the Chair of Widgets UK may be a bit more bare minimum.

Ministers are required to be consulted and involved throught the process. The assessment panel then provides the minister with a list of "appointable" candidates who meet the criteria from the job description. Ministers can reject the whole list and ask for the process to be run again and in theory they can appoint anyone they want - in practice they don't because it would be a breach of Governance Code which the Commissioner would publicise and would cause a scandal/big problem in parliament. So this hasn't actually ever happened. Ministers can also choose to appoint someone rejected (or deemed "unappointable") by the appointments panel - the minister must notify the Commissioner for review. That has happened twice, both times the Commissioner raised an objection and recommended the process was rerun and the minister accepted so that type of appointment has not yet happened.

There can be appointments in "exceptional circumstances" that don't go through that process. The number of exceptional appointments have increased in recent years - overwhelmingly they are making temporary appointments. Typically this is because the appointment process has been delayed, slow, not been able to keep quorate or had churn in the chair of the appointment panel. This is a growing problem where the process is taking a long time and meaning you have temporary appointments leading bodies with long-term leadership gaps.

On firing yes and no. Broadly speaking the Governance Code makes a presumption that nobody should serve more than two terms or 10 years. Ministers can dismiss chairs but it is politically controversial/difficult so it tends to be rare. More common is to increase the political pressure on someone in order to make their position unsustainable - briefings against them, sotto voce comments about not having the confidence of the minister and ultimately public statements against them.

One slight exception to all of this is the Office of Budget Responsibility (which should be abolished and the earth salted) where the chair of the Treasury Select Committee has a formal role in various stages. For example, on dismissal, the Chancellor needs to consent of the chair of the Treasury Select Committee to dismiss the chair of the OBR.

Civil service roles are different and the tension always running through those is between the permanent civil service and the temporary politicians. Generally I think there is a bit of a sense of politicians having a bit more say in appointing the head of their department but that's about it. Also there have been challenges around competing priorities of the permanent civil service basically sketching out career paths and trying to develop their own talent with people going to the right roles not necessarily aligning with political priorities. But the politicians are temporary.

It is very, very difficult to fire a civil servant - that process is almost entirely owned by the permanent civil service.

Obvs in my view I'd like to see the administrative state ground into the dust and more assertive democratic control - I'm kind of okay with the status quo on the permanent independent civil service, but think democratic politicians should have more political aides to help support them (bully the civil service). I also think the civil service (and indeed quangoes) really need to develop a stronger culture of accountability and firing people who have failed instead of moving them sideways and promoting them.

[HisMajestyBOB]

But this is one of those rulings that, while it benefits Trump in the here-and-now, means that the next Dem president will just need to waste time cleaning house as well.  It is indeed an overall loss.

That assumes, of course, that the Supreme Court will rule that a Democratic president can also fire at will and not stop them based on some bullshit.

[Sheilbh]

But this is one of those rulings that, while it benefits Trump in the here-and-now, means that the next Dem president will just need to waste time cleaning house as well.  It is indeed an overall loss.

I mean obviously court won't allow a Democrat to do this.

I'm not sure if I think it's bad or not - in a similar way as I actually think getting rid of Chevron was not necessarily bad. And with both I think it does lessen the importance of the executive branch and appointments to the administrative state which I'm not sure is a bad thing.

[Tonitrus]

But this is one of those rulings that, while it benefits Trump in the here-and-now, means that the next Dem president will just need to waste time cleaning house as well.  It is indeed an overall loss.

I mean obviously court won't allow a Democrat to do this.

I don't agree that it is obvious until tested.  That said, I do get the feeling that there will come a time where a President will get fed up with an out-of-control USSC and get all Andrew Jackson by telling them "fuck you, I am doing this anyway". (but at least hopefully with some somewhat justifiable legalistic flair)

Then we can get g about the fun of arguing the right-vs-wrong of a President doing things that one side believes are actually constitutional against a USSC that the same side believes is acting extra-constitutionally.

[Norgy]

Bloody Arsenal. You're costing me 25 NOK, Havertz! 

[crazy canuck]

Toni, except for independent agencies and tribunals, appointments are at the pleasure of the lieutenant governor and council, which basically means at the pleasure of cabinet.

It means that if ahead of an agency needs to be replaced, that is easily done.

[grumbler]

The Supreme Court also ruled that Trump can fire board members of formerly independent agencies of the executive branch. An important step towards a totalitarian state.

Indeed.  He can even fire employees of the legislative branch - see librarian of Congress - and of private non-government organizations (while stealing their property - see U.S. Institute of Peace).

[Syt]

Article about the SC decision on firings:

https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-executive-power-trump-firing-cook-7b7676e5a066f8df41077a0920b9f334

Supreme Court says Fed's Cook can keep her job for now, but it upholds other Trump firings

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday dramatically expanded presidential power, upholding President Donald Trump's firings of the heads of independent federal agencies with one important exception: the Federal Reserve.

The justices allowed Fed governor Lisa Cook to stay in her job while she fights the Republican president's effort to fire her over allegations of mortgage fraud, which she has denied.

But other than at the nation's central bank, with its role of setting interest rates, the court held that presidents have free rein to fire agency heads at will, despite federal laws that require a cause for such dismissals and a 91-year-old decision that had limited executive authority.

With the six conservative justices in the majority, the nine-member court jettisoned its unanimous decision in Humphrey's Executor that had limited when presidents can fire agencies' board members — in part to try to ensure decision-making free of political influence.

"We hold that such protection from removal is contrary to the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court.

Support for Trump's position

The justices ruled in the case of former Federal Trade Commission member Rebecca Slaughter, whom Trump fired without cause despite a provision of federal law that requires a reason. The logic of the decision extends to other agencies, including the National Labor Relations Board, the Merit Systems Protection Board and the Consumer Product Safety Commission, where Trump also has fired board members.

Trump voiced his approval in a Truth Social post. "It is such an Honor to be the sitting President who won this Historic and Unprecedented Ruling, one of the most important ever given with respect to Presidential Powers," he wrote.

The court already had signaled its support for the Trump administration's position, over the liberals' objection, by allowing Slaughter and the board members of other agencies to be removed from their jobs even as their legal challenges continued.

No president before Trump had sought to wrest control of the agencies that regulate wide swaths of American life, including nuclear energy, product safety and labor relations. But at arguments in Slaughter's case in December, the six conservatives, including three appointed by Trump, seemed more concerned about issuing a ruling that would endure than handing too much power to Trump.

Their rhetoric was reminiscent of the presidential immunity case in 2024 that allowed Trump to avoid prosecution for his efforts to undo his 2020 presidential election loss to Democrat Joe Biden. The court is writing a decision "for the ages," Justice Neil Gorsuch said then.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in a dissent she summarized aloud in the courtroom, said the ruling could lead to "submission, instability, and even oppression."

"The president, to be sure, emerges with more power than ever before. That power was given to him by six justices on this court, not the people or the Constitution," Sotomayor said.

Fed governor Cook's case

In Cook's case, the court voted 5-4 to reject the Trump administration's effort to get Cook out of her job now. Roberts, Justice Brett Kavanaugh and the three liberal justices were in the majority.

Allowing Cook to be ousted now, Roberts wrote, "would allow the President to remove a member of the Federal Reserve at any time, for any reason, without any notice before, and without any judicial check after. That would turn for-cause protection into little more than at-will employment."

Roberts did include a footnote in his opinion noting that nothing forbids Trump from "trying again" to fire her, provided she is given proper notice and a chance to contest it.

Trump suggested he would take Roberts up on the offer, saying on Truth Social that "we will take appropriate action immediately to make sure that someone who has committed wrongdoing will not be making vital decisions concerning the Welfare of the United States of America!"

Cook, who was nominated to the Fed's Board of Governors by Biden, can continue in her post at least as long as her lawsuit challenging her firing goes on, the court said. The Trump administration is appealing a lower-court ruling in her favor.

Besides trying to fire Cook, Trump had threatened to fire former Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell if he didn't leave the board when his term as chairman ended in mid-May. Powell has remained as a governor, even as Kevin Warsh has replaced him as chairman.

Judges on lower courts have allowed Cook to remain in her post as one of seven central bank governors.

The true motivation for trying to fire Cook, Trump's critics say, is the Republican president's desire to exert control over U.S. interest rate policy. If Trump succeeds in removing Cook, the first Black woman to be a Federal Reserve governor, he could replace her with his own appointee and gain a majority on the Fed's board. The case is being closely watched by Wall Street investors and could have broad impacts on the financial markets and the U.S. economy.

Cook said her case was "never about mortgage documents signed years before I became a Federal Reserve governor."

"It was an attempt to remove me on a manufactured pretext because I refused to bow to political pressure and continued to set interest rates based only on what would best serve the American people. That is the most fundamental obligation of a Federal Reserve governor," Cook said in a statement.

Trump's confrontation with the Fed

Trump has been dismissive of worries that cutting rates too quickly could trigger higher inflation. He wants dramatic reductions so the government can borrow more cheaply and Americans can pay lower borrowing costs for new homes, cars or other large purchases, as worries about high costs have soured some voters on his economic management.

The Fed has left its key rate unchanged this year, but a growing chorus of policymakers is expressing concern about persistently high inflation and suggesting the central bank could raise its benchmark rate by the end of this year or leave it unchanged.

While Cook's case was under review at the high court, Trump dramatically escalated his confrontation with the Fed. The Justice Department opened a criminal investigation of Powell and served the central bank with subpoenas.

The investigation ended in late April, the department said. The announcement cleared a major roadblock to the confirmation of Warsh as Powell's successor.

The case against Cook stems from allegations she claimed two properties, in Michigan and Georgia, as "primary residences" in June and July 2021, before she joined the Fed board. Such claims can lead to a lower mortgage rate and smaller down payment than if one of them was declared as a rental property or second home.

Those applications, Solicitor General D. John Sauer said in January, are evidence of "gross negligence at best" and give Trump reason to fire her. In any event, he argued, courts shouldn't be reviewing his decision and Cook has no right to a hearing.

Cook has denied any wrongdoing and has not been charged with a crime.

'"We hold that such protection from removal is contrary to the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court.'
- I'm not sure I follow that argument ...

[celedhring]

Serious question...what agencies does a typical parliamentary democracy have with heads that cannot be dismissed by the PM/head of government?

Slightly depends on role/position.

Broadly speaking there's a "public appointments process" for quangoes (quasi-autonomous non-government organisations) which forms a lot of the administrative state and range from governor of the BofE, to chair of the BBC down to very technical advisory bodies. Basically it is a bit like an administrative version of the process for appointing judges (although the judicial process is more insulated/external of government). Being Britain and quangoes there is a quango that regulates this The Commissioner for Public Appointments basically sets out the requirements in a Governance Code.

Over here it varies a lot. Essentially every agency will have a board that will appoint its managers and set policy, and how the board is appointed will be down to the statute that created the agency in the first place.

I.e. there are some whose boards serve at the pleasure of the cabinet (some which are pretty important like our equivalent of the SEC), others are appointed by the legislature often requiring a supermajority, but many will have mixed boards elected by different systems where the government might or might not have majority. It's a bit of a patchwork, really.

[The Minsky Moment]

Trump v. Slaughter captures in a single case much of what has gone wrong with the Court.

It stems from the tension between two prior cases, decided in the 1920s and 30s.  One struck down a "for cause" limitation on Presidential power.  The other upheld such a limitation as applied to the FTC.

There are a number of ways these cases can be reconciled. For 90 years, the way they were reconciled was to say - the President has unfettered removal power of "principal officers" of the executive branch, but not of specialized expert agencies set up by Congress to exercise significant legislative and judicial functions.  The distinction was understandable, reflected actual accepted practice for decades (expert agencies dated back to the 1880s), and operated without controversy for nearly a century.  Critically, the Congress explicitly relied on this understanding both in creating new agencies that followed the accepted constitutional pattern and in expanding the powers of others.  Congress would have acted differently had the constitutional "rules" been differently specified.

A conservative court, in the true sense of the word, would find itself compelled to respect this constitutional tradition and its settled expectations, and apply the doctrine of stare decisis.  This is not a conservative Court.  It is a Court dominated by a radical majority, sharing peculiar ideological stances formed in the academy and the proceedings of the Federalist Society in the 80s and 90s. This Court has long since clarified that stare decisis is an annoyance to be discarded at the lightest pretext without regard to real world consequence. In reviewing and overturning decaded or even centuries of jurisprudence in every imaginable area of law, it's one consistent north star has been it's own intellectual arrogance and an accompanying contempt for the collective wisdom of its predecessors (a contempt that shows through in this case in the manner in which the Court openly derides the logic and reasoning of the 1930s precedent on the FTC).

But the Court's blithe self-confidence can't mask the shoddiness of its own reasoning.  This Court has told us repeatedly that we should look at the text and structure of the Constitution.  But the text of the Constitution notably does not give the President any inherent power to remove executive officers, even while it clearly specifies the manner of appointment.  Based on the constitutional text, the most logical outcome would be to conclude that Congress can specify the means of removal in setting up the agency (in which case the Court is wrong) or that the means of removal is the same as appointment, i.e. requiring consent of the Senate (in which case the Court is still wrong).

Since the text is unhelpful, the Court relies on its "history and tradition" method.  It does not use that term anymore, because the approach has become so notorious, both for its gross unreliability and the Court's own unwillingness to apply it when history gives the "wrong" result.  The Court's application in Slaughter reminds everyone why the method has become so derided.  The "history" applied by the Court does not resemble any historical method that any professional historian, or even a vaguely conscious amateur, would respect or understand.  It simply consists of string citing various fragments of text from the writings of selected members of the founding generation of statesmen that seem to support the majority's position and ignoring the many other statements to the contrary. The reality of course, was that the founding generation had many different and conflicting views on the matter (often within the same person) and that it was left unresolved and to be worked out later.  And so it was over the centuries, to reach the consensus of the 1930s, which held until yesterday.  That is why the Court's majority avoids mentioning its own "history and tradition" test by name, because it is so glaringly obvious that the majority is willfully erasing history and tradition in favor of its own ideological axe grinding.

Comparing the US practice to other countries, while of interest for other reasons, misses the point in this context.  Not just because of the significant differences between Parliamentary systems and separated Presidential systems.  But because it misses that the much of the structure of the US government has been built on constitutional supports that the Court has suddenly and unceremoniously pulled out from under it. That cannot be done cleanly and without leaving terrible wreckage in its wake.

[garbon]

https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/5935548-birthright-citizenship-supreme-court-trump-14th-amendment/

Supreme Court rules Trump's birthright citizenship restrictions are unconstitutional 

The Supreme Court shut the door on President Trump's birthright citizenship restrictions on Tuesday, ruling that his banner immigration policy is unconstitutional.

Chief Justice John Roberts, joined by all three liberal justices and Justice Amy Coney Barrett, wrote that the 14th Amendment guarantees automatic citizenship for nearly all children born on U.S. soil, even those born to parents in the country unlawfully.

"The trouble is that there is scant evidence for this dramatically revisionist view," Roberts wrote.

A sixth justice, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, disagreed but voted to block Trump's order under federal law.

The three remaining conservative justices, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch, sided with Trump.

"I am not sure that today's opinion will stand the test of time," Thomas wrote, saying the decision "devalues" American citizenship.

The decision marks one of the Supreme Court's most stinging blows against Trump's second-term agenda, nullifying a key prong of the president's immigration crackdown.

Trump made his birthright citizenship executive order one of his Day 1 policies upon retaking the White House. It would require a baby born on U.S. soil to have at least one parent with citizenship or permanent legal status.

The importance of the policy spurred Trump to observe oral arguments at the high court himself in April, a first for a sitting president. Afterward, he repeatedly predicted publicly he wouldn't win the case.

The policy never went into effect amid an onslaught of litigation by Democratic-led states, immigration services organizations and individual mothers. They insisted it runs afoul of the 14th Amendment, which guarantees citizenship to all persons born in the country who are "subject to the jurisdiction thereof."

Many legal experts have long argued that only leaves room for narrow exceptions, like the children of ambassadors, enemies during a hostile invasion, tribal members and those born on warships.

The administration challenged that conventional understanding.

Its position had some longtime backers, including John Eastman, who became well-known for writing legal memos advocating for Congress to reject certification of the 2020 election results.

But the president's order invigorated a debate that played out for months across the country at conservative legal conferences and in academic writings and newspaper op-eds.

The legal battle has reached the Supreme Court twice.

Last year, the justices took up the dispute to clamp down on lower judges' ability to issue universal injunctions blocking the president's policies. But that decision left unaddressed whether Trump's moves on birthright citizenship were actually legal.

It devalues American citizenship that we are sticking with the 14th amendment?

[crazy canuck]

The recent spate of USSC inconsistent decisions reminds me of Arendt's  observation that the objective of a totalitarian regime is not conviction but exhaustion. The goal is not to create true believers. The goal is to create a population who no longer cares what is true.

There is then no need to convince people the lie is true, because they no longer care.

[The Minsky Moment]

The fact that the holding on birth citizenship was only 5-4 really tells you about the extent of the rot.  It would be like having a supposed expert body of mathematicians ruling on addition problems, with 5 of them saying 1+1=2 and the other 4 saying 1+1=frog