Note from Rachel 2/26: Authoritarian Agencies

The Counsel

Some Spider, Inc.

Politics, News

4.6 • 848 Ratings

🗓️ 26 February 2025

⏱️ 11 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Trump and Musk are on a self-declared mission to destroy the bureaucracy and the “deep state" — and they're taking aim at the government's independent agencies. CAFE Contributor and administrative law expert Rachel Barkow breaks down why an almost 100-year-old Supreme Court precedent is at risk of being overturned and the danger for the rule of law. Rachel Barkow is the Charles Seligson Professor of Law at NYU School of Law and the Faculty Director of the Zimroth Center on the Administration of Criminal Law at NYU. From 2013 to 2019, she served as a Member of the United States Sentencing Commission. From 2010 to 2020, she was a member of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office Conviction Integrity Policy Advisory Panel and co-chaired Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s transition committee on police accountability in 2021. She is also amongst the most cited legal scholars of all time. For a transcript of Rachel’s note and the full archive of contributor notes, head to CAFE.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:31.8	Hey folks, Rachel here. Here's a recording of my latest cafe note, authoritarian agencies. As always, please write to us with your thoughts and questions at letters atcafe.com.
0:48.0	Dear listener, Trump and Musk are on a self-declared mission to destroy the bureaucracy and the deep state, and one
0:55.8	battle in that war is their quest to get rid of so-called independent agencies. These are agencies
1:01.9	created by Congress to have a degree of independence from immediate partisan pressures so that they
1:07.7	can create more stable policies based on expertise instead of political whims.
1:12.8	One valuable tool for establishing some insulation from partisan pressure is to allow the
1:18.4	president to remove the heads of these agencies only for cause, such as malfeasance or
1:23.5	neglect of their duties, instead of allowing the president to remove someone arbitrarily.
1:28.6	A classic example of an independent agency is the Federal Reserve. Its board of governors
1:33.7	serve 14-year terms and members can be removed only for cause. Congress established this structure
1:39.6	so that monetary policy would not fluctuate in response to political pressures. This independence
1:45.3	has been referred to as the cornerstone of good monetary policy, because without it, the obvious
1:50.9	danger is an unwise monetary expansion, time to win an election. Congress created many other
1:57.0	agencies responsible for financial regulation with similar restrictions on the removal of
2:02.5	those who lead them. They include the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Commodity Futures
2:07.5	Trading Commission, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Federal Trade Commission,
2:12.6	and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Congress also gave this structure to other agencies where protection
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