Two big questions have come up as President Trump works to expand his power: what should the government do, and who decides?
In an executive order signed on Tuesday, Trump sought direct supervision of agencies that regulate stock markets, election spending, broadcasting and more. Though the president appoints the heads of these agencies, they are, by law and tradition, supposed to operate with some independence.
Russell Vought, the president's budget director, wants to go in a different direction.
Here's what he told me in 2023, as he worked on Project 2025, a Republican blueprint for policy action: "The notion of an independent agency —whether that's a flat out independent agency like the FCC, or an agency that has parts of it that view itself as independent, like the Department of Justice — we're planting a flag and saying we reject that notion completely."
That flag the administration has now planted challenges decades of precedent.
Jane Manners, a legal historian at Temple University Beasley School of Law, told us how the "alphabet agencies" came to be — agencies like the FCC, or Federal Communications Commission that regulates the broadcast airways, or the SEC, the Securities and Exchange Commission that regulates stock markets.
Here are four key points:
The tradition of independent agencies goes back to the 1880s.
The first was the Interstate Commerce Commission. It was established by Congress in 1887 to regulate railroad rates. "This was a really heated political issue," Manners said. Railroads had transformed the economy and many other businesses relied on them–very much as the internet has transformed the modern economy. "You really had to have interstate regulation, and they wanted to do it right … They decided that the best way to do this was to create a commission comprising people from both parties," who would not be "subject to the vagaries of politics," and could not be "removed at will, which would insulate them from politics.
Congress approved and Presidents signed laws creating numerous agencies, but critics in the Trump administration deny that experts are ever truly insulated from politics.
Manners says Vought has raised several objections to independent agencies, which are collectively known as "the administrative state." She said the objections include "that they are not 100% accountable to the President," which "is a problem in terms of their overall accountability, the idea who do they answer to? And that is a vision of accountability that makes sense on first hearing."
On reflection, the Temple professor takes a different view: "When you think about the kind of accountability that you want in a decision making body that is making sensitive decisions about the stock market, about communications, about elections, it's hard to imagine" that they can function properly under presidential pressure.
The key to the system up to now has been ambiguity: Presidents appoint officials and lead the executive branch but generally keep their distance from some agencies.
"The way these independent commissions have been set up," Manners said, "is you have this generally, a commission … set up to serve a term of years, like you serve a term of four years, but you can be removed [only] in discrete instances. Generally it's inefficiency, neglect of duty and malfeasance in office." Outside those reasons, "the law structures it is the President hands off create that sort of independence."
The Justice Department is run by the Attorney General, not a commission, but similar arguments have applied.
"Since Watergate, there have been strong norms against presidential control of the Department of Justice. These norms arose after the scandals involving [President Richard] Nixon … You want your procedures and your independent decision making to legitimate the government's adjudication of particular problems. You don't want everything to be politics all the way down."
Manners asserts that the administration's views in many cases challenge or even flout the laws structured to limit a president's direct power. The laws governing administrative agencies are invoked in many of the lawsuits against the administration's early actions. And now the administration is reaching for power again, asserting power over large portions of the most powerful independent agency: the Federal Reserve.
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