Congress and the Executive II

Nominations and Removals

• PAS and non-PAS
• The Decision of 1789 -- president does not need approval for firings
• Could Trump order the firing of Mueller? (Yep) Precedent: The Saturday Night Massacre
• A key exception: Independent regulatory commissions: Humphrey's Executor v. US
• Remember: INDEPENDENT AGENCIES AND INDEPENDENT REGULATORY COMMISSIONS ARE TWO DIFFERENT THINGS. 

Legislative Controls

• Inspectors General (POTUS WAS DISPLEASED!)
• Congress "organizes" the executive:
• "Drug Czar"
• The "organization" of DHS.
• DNI and the intelligence community

Regulation

• Federal Register and Code of Federal Regulations
• Net Neutrality, for example
• The process (shorter form in Davidson 334):

Federal Register pages by decade:

Congressional Review Act (Thurber, pp. 106-16)

• Bypasses lengthy APA, disapproval resolutions not subject to filibuster
• Relatively ineffective ... until 2017
• Turnabout: Dems want to use it to overturn the net neutrality rule