Kenneth Katkin, law professor at Northern Kentucky University’s Chase College of Law, believes the Supreme Court’s eventual ruling will decide Fed independence.
“When you talk about the Fed independence, that’s really what the Supreme Court will be deciding,” Katkin told Mortgage Professional America. “Whether we still have the principle of Fed independence or not. I think as long as the lower courts are deciding it, the laws that exist are crafted the way they are to preserve Fed independence.”
Humphrey’s Executor
A case the Supreme Court will hear first is a challenge to the 90-year-old Humphrey’s Executor, on December 8 in Trump v. Slaughter.
Humphrey’s Executor protects the so-called “fourth branch” of the government. It keeps organizations like the Fed and the Federal Trade Commission, which are not cabinet positions, from having members fired by the president without cause.
“In Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, the Court drew a distinction between ‘executive’ officers like the Secretary of War or a postmaster, who could be fired by the President under the Myers precedent, versus ‘quasi-legislative’ or ‘quasi-judicial’ officers of multi-member ‘independent’ federal agencies like the Federal Trade Commission,” Katkin said.