Roberts and Kagan prepare for another showdown on executive power
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Elena Kagan are well matched, rhetorically forceful opposites. And they have been clashing for more than a decade over an increasingly relevant question of presidential power: How easy should it be for the president to fire the heads of independent agencies?
That issue, to be aired at the Supreme Court on Monday, has grown more salient as President Donald Trump has attempted to remove multiple officials, including at the Federal Trade Commission, National Labor Relations Board and Federal Reserve.
Their first faceoff occurred in 2009 before Kagan had even joined the court, as she was serving as US solicitor general, standing in the well of the courtroom, with Roberts looking down from the center chair. They tangled over a 1935 precedent that protects agency independence and that now hangs in the balance, Humphrey’s Executor v. United States.
Since his days as a young lawyer in the Ronald Reagan administration, Roberts has argued for vast executive power, including the authority to fire individuals who lead administrative agencies. “Without such power,” Roberts wrote in the 2009 dispute over a corporate auditing board, “the President could not be held fully accountable for discharging his own responsibilities; the buck would stop somewhere else.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/roberts-kagan-prepare-another-showdown-090059483.html