In response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Lucia v. SEC, President Trump has issued an executive order that changes the process used by federal agencies for administrative law judges (ALJs).
In Lucia, the Supreme Court ruled that administrative law judges (ALJs) used by the SEC are “Officers of the United States” under the Appointments Clause in Article II of the U.S. Constitution because they exercise “significant authority pursuant to the laws of the United States.” Under the Appointments Clause, the power to appoint “Officers” is vested exclusively in the President, a court of law, or the head of a “Department.”
Currently, federal agencies hire ALJs through a competitive merit-selection process administered by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). The Executive Order removes ALJs from the “competitive service,” a federal worker classification that follows the OPM’s hiring rules, and places them into the “excepted service,” a category of federal workers who are subject to a different hiring process, by creating a new excepted service category specifically for ALJs.
Federal regulations provide that appointments of workers who are in the excepted service are to be made “in accordance with such regulations and practices as the head of the agency concerned finds necessary.” The executive order amends such regulations to provide that for ALJs, such regulations and practices must include the requirement that an ALJ who is other than an incumbent ALJ must be licensed to practice law by a state, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, or any territorial court established under the U.S. Constitution.
Presumably, to address Lucia’s conclusion that ALJs must be appointed by an agency official who qualifies as the “head of a Department” for purposes of the Appointments Clause, the agency regulations for hiring ALJs issued pursuant to the executive order will provide that a final hiring decision must be made by the agency head rather than a subordinate official. However, even if ALJs are only hired by agency heads, it is not certain that the heads of all agencies would qualify as the “head of a Department.”
As we have previously observed with regard to the CFPB, the Dodd-Frank Act provided that “[t]here is established in the Federal Reserve System, an independent bureau to be known as the “[BCFP].” Under U.S. Supreme Court decisions that have addressed the meaning of the term “Department,” it is unclear whether an establishment’s status as an independent agency with a principal officer who is not subordinate to any other executive officer is sufficient to render it a “Department” or whether it must also be self-contained. While compelling arguments can be made that that the CFPB’s status as an independent agency should be sufficient to render it a “Department,” Congress’ decision to house the CFPB in the Federal Reserve means that the CFPB’s status as a “Department” is not free from doubt. Similarly, because the OCC is housed in the Treasury Department, there is a question whether the Comptroller would qualify as the “head of a Department.”
