Comment by g-b-r
1 year ago
> I'm not sure we'd want to have an unelected executive agencies that is unaccountable to head of the executive branch. That just wouldn't even make sense.
Independent agencies, that execute their mission rather than the whims of one man (and are accountable to the law) don't make sense to you?
No, not at all. Who are they accountable to? Nobody?
Anyone who knows even US Civics 101 would recoil at such an idea.
Have you heard of the courts?
The president can settle any issues between their view, the agency head’s view, and the agency’s guiding laws, in the courts.
The courts are their specifically to settle disagreements.
That’s how the law works for agencies. That’s how the law works for all laws.
Three branches checking each other.
They are accountable to the courts, whose job it is to decide if they are faithfully fulfilling the laws laid out by Congress.
Sure, but that's true before and after this EO.
What I'm talking about is accountability for interpretation of the law.
Let's say the head of an agency decides their interpretation of the law is X, but the President thinks it's Y. You can't bring them to court because X and Y fall within the interpretation of law.
If agencies were not accountable to the President, you basically have an unelected/unaccountable (when it comes to policy within interpretation of the law) bureaucrat that the voters are unable to hold accountable.
With this EO, the voters can elect a President who can then direct the agency head to execute interpretation Y.
That seems like the more idea scenario?
4 replies →
Again, they're accountable to the laws that regulate them and the judicial system, in their every action.
It's something extremely common in normal democracies, and if it's really antithetical to US civics, that's just another proof that the US were only a pretence of a democratic system.
Also, they're run by people appointed by elected officials, just like any other government agency. They serve according to laws passed by the people's representatives and signed by the president, and they can be removed from their positions according to the law, as well. The theory that all executive authority must stem from the president's will and be subject to his whim is novel, monarchical, and highly dangerous.
And those laws make them accountable in explicitly specified manner to the President, who is empowered to remove them, but only for enumerated causes.
3 replies →
Congress