Well well. Democrats are finally appreciating Judge Brett Kavanaugh and the unitary executive. We are referring to the resignation of Joe Biden’s first day of the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), Kathy Kraninger, and of the general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), Peter Robb.
A president deserves his own people to lead administrative agencies. But Biden’s resignations are a break from a long precedent in the NLRB and a 180-degree reversal of Democratic views on the CFPB. The good news is that it could trigger a legal challenge to former Supreme Court precedents.
In 2010, the Democratic Congress created the CFPB as an independent agency whose director could be dismissed by the president only for inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance. While at the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, then Judge Kavanaugh wrote a decision and a dissent arguing that this limitation violated the separation of powers. Its logic was adopted by the Supreme Court last summer (Seila Law v. CFPB).
Cue liberal outrage. “The Republican nominees of the Court made it clear in I do not know your dislike of independent agencies, ”roared Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island.
For the record, Ms. Kraninger supported the president’s general removal authority, although that meant that a future president could remove her. Then it happened. Ms. Kraninger received an email from the White House at 12:21 pm on Wednesday stating: “If you don’t resign by 2:00 pm today, President Biden will remove you from that position.”