This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Monday, April 22nd, 2004.

I'm Caleb Brown.

For those who wield significant power in the federal government's executive branch,

what should be the process for allowing

them to serve.

It was Tommy Berry details who can solve that problem of big Executive Branch power

wielded by people who haven't been confirmed by the Senate.

Tommy, you've written extensively on this topic on a number of occasions in different formats

and tackling this from different angles, but when we talk about an officer, somebody who is serving in the executive

branch, what are we talking about?

Well, fundamentally, we're talking about someone who exercises significant authority. That's the terminology

that the Supreme Court has developed. So it's anyone who has the power to make decisions

that affect normal citizens' lives. That could be an administrative law judge who decides whether you have to pay a

fine for allegedly violating some rule an agency has set down, or could be a bureaucrat or an

administrator who's who's set out a new rule in the federal reporter that says what

fees you have to pay what fines you have to pay what rules you have to follow when

building homes anything and everything across the scope of the federal

government's power it's exercised and decisions are made by officers.

And that's why the Constitution put in safeguards for how those officers are chosen and who that power is entrusted

in.

And what the approval process is for those people to serve in those roles?

Exactly.

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