May 19, 2021

Too Cute?

     I don't know how, if at all, this ever impacts Social Security but the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has issued an interesting opinion on remand from the Supreme Court in the case of CFPB v. Seila Law. The Court held that once the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Board knew that she could be removed from office by the President without cause, her tenure in office became constitutional. Moreover, she could ratify her prior actions taken before the Supreme Court opinion in Seila Law. Thus, the Supreme Court opinion in the Seila Law case becomes meaningless as far as Seila Law itself is concerned. I'm not sure how the Supreme Court will see this but it seems a bit too cute to me. How do you say that this is an important constitutional issue and then say, never mind, we're not going to let it have real world consequences?

     To this point, as far as I know, Andrew Saul hasn't acknowledged that Seila Law even applies to him, nor has the White House said anything on the subject. Has Social Security filed a brief on the Seila Law issue yet in federal court?

    

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Seila Law isn't jurisprudence, it's a Federalist Society thought experiment come to life. I know reps are grabbing on to it so they can get automatic remands on every SSD claim denial ever, but that's not why Seila was decided.