From: Cato at Liberty
There’s yet more strangeness afoot in the world of financial regulation. No, it’s not the CFPB this time. It’s the generally more staid Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Earlier this week, the Department of Justice weighed in on Lucia v. SEC, a case challenging the constitutionality of the SEC’s in-house judges, known as Administrative Law Judges (ALJs). What is strange is that the DOJ sided with Raymond Lucia and against the SEC. Seemingly in response, the SEC took action and ratified the appointment of its ALJs, a move it had been resisting for some time.
The case is currently with the Supreme Court where the Court is considering whether it will hear and decide the matter. The question is whether ALJs are “mere employees” or are instead “inferior officers.” If the latter, their appointment is subject to the appointments clause in the Constitution, which permits Congress to “vest the appointment of such inferior officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of departments.” Since the process for appointing ALJs has (until recently) not been done by any of these, if they are indeed inferior officers, their appointment would be unconstitutional.