The Removal Power and the Federal Deficit: Form, Substance, and Administrative Independence
Abstract
This Article suggests that the significance of the conflict between Congress and the President over the removal power has been greatly exaggerated. The Constitution is silent on the question of removal. The textual provision dealing with appointments, from which one might reason by analogy, lends support to two contradictory interpretations: first, that removal is an exclusively presidential prerogative, subject perhaps to statutory for-cause requirements; and second, that removal is a function which the chief executive and the Senate share. On practical and historical grounds, however, the former view has prevailed. At the same time, a broad array of checks and balances makes it very costly for the President to dismiss any official. Moreover, Congress retains a sizeable arsenal of weapons by which it may exercise more effective control over official conduct than is realistically afforded by the threat of removal. Thus, the formal power to remove cannot serve as a satisfactory operational definition of the power to control official conduct.
Keywords
Seperation of Powers
Publication Date
1987
Document Type
Article
Place of Original Publication
Kentucky Law Journal
Publication Information
75 Kentucky Law Journal 699 (1987)
Repository Citation
Entin, Jonathan L., "The Removal Power and the Federal Deficit: Form, Substance, and Administrative Independence" (1987). Faculty Publications. 1098.
https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/faculty_publications/1098
