Myers v. United States

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Myers v. United States
Seal of the United States Supreme Court.svg
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued December 5, 1923
Reargued April 13–14, 1925
Decided October 25, 1926
Full case nameFrank S. Myers, Administratrix v. United States
Citations272 U.S. 52 ( more )
47 S. Ct. 21; 71 L. Ed. 160; 1926 U.S. LEXIS 35
Case history
PriorAppeal from the Court of Claims
Holding
The President has the exclusive authority to remove "administrative officers" and the Take Care Clause [1] generally limits Congress from restricting this power.
Court membership
Chief Justice
William H. Taft
Associate Justices
Oliver W. Holmes Jr.  · Willis Van Devanter
James C. McReynolds  · Louis Brandeis
George Sutherland  · Pierce Butler
Edward T. Sanford  · Harlan F. Stone
Case opinions
MajorityTaft, joined by Van Devanter, Sutherland, Butler, Sanford, Stone
DissentHolmes
DissentMcReynolds
DissentBrandeis
Laws applied
U.S. Const. art. II, § 2, cl. 2

Myers v. United States, 272 U.S. 52 (1926), was a United States Supreme Court decision ruling that the President's exclusive power to remove executive branch officials is vested in the Office of the Presidency by Article Two of the United States Constitution, and the Take Care Clause generally limits Congress from restricting this power.

Contents

Myers was the first Supreme Court case to invalidate a federal law for violating the separation of powers by allowing Congress to "participate in the exercise of [the removal power]". [2] The Taft Court's broad view of the President's "constitutional duty of seeing that the laws be faithfully executed" was limited in subsequent decisions to "purely executive" offices.

In Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (2020), the Supreme Court interpreted Humphrey's as recognizing an exception for independent (multimember, non-partisan) agencies, and reaffirming the core holding of Myers that the President generally has an unencumbered removal power.

Background

After decades of politicial controversy over the tenure of political appointees, the power of removal was recognized as an executive power vested in the President by Article II in a series of Supreme Court decisions in the late 19th-century. In Parsons v. United States (1897) the Court, "considering the construction of the Constitution in this regard as given by the Congress of 1789, and having in mind the constant and uniform practice of the Government in harmony with such construction" read at-pleasure removal into a statute that did not provide for it, noting that opponents to the implied Article II removal power had acquiesced to the Decision of 1789. [3]

In 1920, Frank S. Myers, a First-Class Postmaster in Portland, Oregon, was removed from office by President Woodrow Wilson. [4] An 1876 federal law provided that "Postmasters of the first, second, and third classes shall be appointed and may be removed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate."

Myers argued that his dismissal violated this law, and he was entitled to back pay for the unfilled portion of his four-year term. [5] He lost in the court of claims on the ground of laches. After Myers' death his window continued the litigation. Solicitor General James M. Beck was skeptical about laches but reluctant to "waive the benefit of [a] decision" in favor of the government. However, on re-argument, Beck said that Myers likely had a cause of action on the constitutional question left unanswered by the Court of Claims. [6]

Supreme Court

According to Justice Pierce Butler's notes the justices conferenced Myers on April 25, 1925. The justices appear to have agreed that the case should be decided on constitutional grounds. The Court held that the statute was unconstitutional, as it violated the separation of powers between the executive and the legislative branches. [7]

Majority

Chief Justice (and former President) William Howard Taft, writing for the Court, noted that the Constitution mentions the appointment of officials but is silent on their dismissal. He proceeded to conduct a voluminous examination on the history of the President's removal power.

Taft first examined the notes of the Constitutional Convention and found that the Virginia Plan proposed to vest in the Executive "all the executive powers of the Congress under the Convention". [a] When the Constitution was ratified, compromises were made with a faction of smaller states who feared the unitary executive would tip the scales in favor of larger states. One of these compromises was the advice and consent requirement of the Appointments Clause. Taft, citing Farrand 's, notes that some members from larger states were skeptical about the compromise. [8] [9]

Taft, in a letter to Justice Butler, said that "the Constitution vested the executive power of removal in the President, with only the exceptions that appear in the instrument itself". [10] [11] The power of removal is incident to the power of appointment, and the power of Congress to vest the appointment of inferior officers "in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments" is an exception. [12] Justice Harlan F. Stone wrote a similar memo to Taft stating "there was no express limit to the power of removal" over executive officers. [13]

According to Taft, the vesting clauses of the U.S. Constitution are based on Montesquieu's independence principle. The Decision of 1789, Taft says, "was intended to be a legislative declaration that the power to remove officers appointed by the President and the Senate vested in the President alone, and until the Johnson impeachment in 1868, its meaning was not doubted even by those who questioned its soundness." [14] Taft concluded "the reasonable construction of the Constitution must be that the branches should be kept separate in all cases in which they were not expressly blended". [15]

Taft finally analyzed subsequent congressional debates over the issue. [16] [17] The Tenure of Office Act, which had required Senate approval for removals of executive officers, was passed over President Andrew Johnson's veto, leading to his impeachment during the Reconstruction era. President Ulysses S. Grant said the law was "inconsistent with a faithful and efficient administration of government". Taft said "It was an attempt to redistribute the powers and minimize those of the President". [18]

Taft cited historical evidence about Alexander Hamilton and the Neutrality Proclamation to argue that the Take Care Clause does not restrict or limit the "Executive Power" vested in the Office of the Presidency by Article II of the United States Constitution. [19] [20] Myers was not the first case to rule that the Take Care Clause implied illimitable presidential power to remove executive officers; Shurtleff v. United States (1903) held that the maxim expressio unius est exclusio alterius did not apply to for cause removal provisions because "it must be assumed that the President acts with reference to his constitutional duty to take care that the laws are faithfully executed". [9] [21]

Taft concluded that Article II "grants to the President" the "general administrative control of those executing the laws, including the power of appointment and removal of executive officers", otherwise the President would not be able to fulfill his Article II responsibility to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed". [22] [23]

Dissents

In a lengthy dissent, Justice McReynolds used an equally exhaustive analysis of quotes from members of the Constitutional Convention and, writing that he found no language in the Constitution or in the notes from the Convention intended to grant the President the "illimitable power" to fire every appointed official "as caprice may suggest" in the entire government, with the exception of judges. [24]

In a separate dissent, Justice Brandeis wrote that the fundamental case deciding the power of the Supreme Court, Marbury v. Madison , "assumed, as the basis of decision, that the President, acting alone, is powerless to remove an inferior civil officer appointed for a fixed term with the consent of the Senate; and that case was long regarded as so deciding." [25]

In a third dissent, Justice Holmes noted that it was within the power of Congress to abolish the position of Postmaster entirely, not to mention to set the position's pay and duties, and he had no problem believing Congress also ought to be able to set terms of the position's occupiers. [26]

Reactions and commentary

In an interview with SCOTUSblog law professor Stephen Vladeck said "there's language in Chief Justice Taft's majority opinion that for the first time opened the door to arguments that for-cause removal restrictions were generally unconstitutional." [27]

Jerry Mashaw pointed out that "Myers...involving as it did the Tenure of Office Act is clearly distinguishable" from the for-cause removal protection in Seila Law, even though dicta in Taft's opinion suggested that Congress could never qualify the President's removal power. [28]

Subsequent developments

In 1935, in Humphrey's Executor v. United States, the Supreme Court upheld a statute protecting the FTC Commissioner with a for-cause removal restriction. Recoginizing longstanding disputes over the removal power, the Court said the authority of Congress to restrict the President's removal power "will depend upon the character of the office." Humphrey's distinguished executive officers from officers occupying "quasi-legislative" or "quasi-judicial" positions. The majority opinion stated that: [29]

The office of a postmaster is so essentially unlike the office now involved that the decision in the Myers case cannot be accepted as controlling our decision here. A postmaster is an executive officer restricted to the performance of executive functions. He is charged with no duty at all related to either the legislative or judicial power. The actual decision in the Myers case finds support in the theory that such an officer is merely one of the units in the executive department and, hence, inherently subject to the exclusive and illimitable power of removal by the Chief Executive whose subordinate and aid he is. Putting aside dicta [...] the necessary reach of the decision goes far enough to include all purely executive officers.

In Wiener v. United States the Court said the Humphrey's decision "narrowly confined the scope of the Myers decision". The Court seemed to have stepped back from Taft's broad view of the President's "constitutional duty of seeing that the laws be faithfully executed". [23]

Beginning in the 1980s the Supreme Court's cases recognized the central concern of Myers as encroachment in cases like Bowsher v. Synar and INS v. Chadha . Other cases like Morrison v. Olson and Mistretta appeared to uphold Humphrey's for cause protections for independent agencies. [30]

According to Jerry L. Mashaw in Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (2020), the Supreme Court "interpreted Myers as establishing a general rule of unencumbered presidential removal authority for all executive officers." [28] Justice Elena Kagan, dissenting in Selia Law, argued that Morrison v. Olson affirmed Humphrey's repudiation of the Myers dicta. [31]

Notes

  1. ↑ During the Revolutionary War, and before the Constitution was ratified, the powers of appointment and removal were exercised by the Continental Congress under the Articles of Confederation

References

  1. ↑ Goldsmith & Manning 2016, p. 1836-1837.
  2. ↑ "Acts of Congress Held Unconstitutional in Whole or in Part by the Supreme Court of the United States" (PDF). govinfo.gov. p. 2124.
  3. ↑ Myers 272 U.S. 52, 147 (1926); Parsons v. United States 167 U.S. 324, 330-339 (1897)
  4. ↑ Myers, 272 U.S. at 57.
  5. ↑ Myers, 272 U.S. at 59.
  6. ↑ Post 2020, p. 168.
  7. ↑ Myers, 272 U.S. 52, 176 (1926)
  8. ↑ Myers,272 U.S. 52, 110-111 (1926)
  9. 1 2 Goldsmith & Manning 2016, p. 1839.
  10. ↑ Post 2020, p. 173.
  11. ↑ Calabresi & Rhodes 1992, p. 1199.
  12. ↑ Willis, Hugh Evander (1927). "Presidential Power of Removal". Indiana Law Journal. 2 (4): 399.
  13. ↑ Post 2020, p. 175.
  14. ↑ Myers, 272 U.S. 52, 114 (1926)
  15. ↑ Myers, 272 U.S. 52, 116 (1926)
  16. ↑ Calabresi & Rhodes 1992, p. 1169.
  17. ↑ Goldsmith & Manning 2016, p. 1840.
  18. ↑ Myers, at 272 U.S. 52, 166-169 (1926)
  19. ↑ Goldsmith & Manning 2016, p. 1861.
  20. ↑ Myers 272 U.S. 52, 137 (1926); See Seila Law v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau , p. 25-26
  21. ↑ E.g. Humphrey's Executor 295 U.S. 602, 622 (1935)
  22. ↑ "Congress's Authority to Influence and Control Executive Branch Agencies". congress.gov.
  23. 1 2 Goldsmith & Manning 2016, p. 1841.
  24. ↑ Myers, 272 U.S. at 239 (McReynolds, J., dissenting).
  25. ↑ Myers, 272 U.S. at 272 (McReynolds, J., dissenting).
  26. ↑ Myers, 272 U.S. at 177 (Holmes, J., dissenting).
  27. ↑ Erskine, Ellena (April 10, 2025). "Will the court overturn a 1930s precedent to expand presidential power, again?". SCOTUSblog.
  28. 1 2 Mashaw, Jerry L. (August 27, 2020). "Of Angels, Pins, and For-Cause Removal: A Requiem for the Passive Virtues". The University of Chicago Law Review Online. Retrieved November 30, 2021.
  29. ↑ Humphrey's Executor 295 U.S. 602, 627-628
  30. ↑ Lessig, Lawrence; Sunstein, Cass (1994). "The President and the Administration". Columbia Law Review. 94 (1).
  31. ↑ Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau , 545 U.S. 748 (2005)

Works cited

See also

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