With no fanfare, the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice issued an opinion yesterday that the President may remove the Commissioner of Social Security from office notwithstanding the statutory provisions limiting removal from office. An opinion had been requested by the Deputy Counsel for the President.
Update: Senator Grassley has tweeted that he's hearing that the President may oust Andrew Saul from his position as Commissioner. Senator McConnell has retweeted this saying "httI agree with @ChuckGrassley. This removal would be an unprecedented and dangerous politicization of the Social Security Administration."
Further update: I've received several reports that there was a blast e-mail to Social Security employees at 4:30 today from an Acting Commissioner of Social Security indicating that Saul and Black are gone.
And another update: The Washington Post reports that Saul still believes he’s Commissioner and plans to report for work on Monday — remotely from his home in New York city. Who’s going to break it to him?
ps://twitter.com/LeaderMcConnell/status/1413584718684168197?s=20
46 comments:
Gone!
Official announcement is out. Saul and Black are history.
Charles, Saul is out. Kiolo Kijakzi is stepping in as acting commissioner.
At 4:30pm EST, an email was sent out from Kilolo Kijakazi, introducing herself as the new Acting Commissioner for SSA!
Saul was fired. And Black as well.
Mr. Grassley's concern is unwarranted. Saul and Black were incompetent. They needed to go. Time for change. The 2 years both of them served did nothing to improve Social Security. A ham sandwich would have done a better job.
"This removal would be an unprecedented and dangerous politicization of the Social Security Administration." - Mitch McConnell
I think we should trust McConnell on this - I mean, he IS the expert on unprecedented and dangerous politicization.
Let’s not forget that David Black fired all Obama appointees on the day of the Inauguration. Could have easily given them a pay period, at least they got six months.
Saul was incompetent and a lightning rod. .
Still I mean he was appointed for a six year term.
Are we going to have commissioners fired every time there is a new Administration of the opposing party?
Also the way this was handled seems unprofessional. No Email from Saul announcing his departure? This sudden shock Email to all SSA employees and who is this new Commissioner anyway?
Grassley's point seems to be well taken. This looks like politicization.
Don't let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya.
In his parting shot, Saul made it clear how he felt about telework as reported by the Washington Post:
In the interview, Saul described himself as “very upset” about his sudden dismissal and cited two years of progress modernizing the agency’s day-to-day operations on his watch, including digitizing online payments, replacing old information technology systems and reining in a workforce that had abused telework before the pandemic force him to send employees home to work.
“There was terrible abuse,” he said.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/andrew-saul-social-security-/2021/07/09/c18a34fa-df99-11eb-a501-0e69b5d012e5_story.html
It is kind of funny.
The court cases that led to this originated because of Trump. And if Trump had won and used them McConnell would be behind him 100%
As for both the folks here and apparently Mr Saul who haven't read the opinion, here is the conclusion:
We therefore conclude that the President may remove the SSA Commissioner at will. We further conclude that disregarding the constitutionally unenforceable restriction on removal in 42 U.S.C. § 902(a)(3) would not affect the validity of the remainder of the statute.
DAWN JOHNSEN
Acting Assistant Attorney General
Office of Legal Counsel
The Supreme Court ruled that agency heads serve at the pleasure of the POTUS. This is as it should be. In fact the COSS position should be replaced with a cabinet level Secretary of Social Security. There is no cabinet member who has a bigger impact on average American lives than the person who heads SSA.
From this point forward the COSS will be replaced every time there is a change in the party that possesses the White House.
To answer your question, the new COSS is Kilolo Kijakazi and her deputy COSS is Scott Frey.
So how long is Michael Korbey set for remaining employed? He's a Heritage Foundation person, came in on the Presidential Transition Team and got his placement.
we'll see how far down this goes. will Biden finally clean house at SSA?
I am shocked he is still there. Probably gone on Monday.
@6:32 PM, if SSA becomes a cabinet level Agency, it should be renamed The Department of Social Equity and Security.
Seems like Saul would put himself in legal jeopardy if he tried to connect to the SSA VPN on Monday and use a U.S. government information system for unauthorized purposes. What do you think, Charles?
"reining in a workforce that had abused telework before the pandemic force him to send employees home to work."
The inside word at SSA was that Saul hated telework from day one. He then terminated telework for thousands of SSA workers within months of his becoming commissioner. If there was abuse of telework, there was no attempt to find out who doing this, he just abruptly terminated it for everyone.
The termination of telework in 2019 destroyed SSA employee morale, was counter productive, and was a betrayal of the spirit of the bipartisan Congressional confirmation vote which approved Saul as Commissioner.
As soon as he got the job, Saul became an authoritarian dictator and burned his bridges. While he later tried to make amends with employees, and accepted telework during the pandemic, it was just too late.
His outrageous actions and behavior during the initial months of his tenure, cooked his goose.
Saul was such a loser, just like Trump. Bye!
(3) The Commissioner shall be appointed for a term of 6 years, except that the initial term of office for Commissioner shall terminate January 19, 2001. In any case in which a successor does not take office at the end of a Commissioner’s term of office, such Commissioner may continue in office until the entry upon office of such a successor. A Commissioner appointed to a term of office after the commencement of such term may serve under such appointment only for the remainder of such term. An individual serving in the office of Commissioner may be removed from office only pursuant to a finding by the President of neglect of duty or malfeasance in office.
That no longer applies thanks to the recent Supreme Court ruling. From now on the COSS serves at the pleasure of the POTUS. Saul didn't please Biden so he is gone for good.
I'm sure we've already disabled his account. He can try to logon all he wants but he'll get blocked at the door. It'll say "account disabled at the request of President Biden".
I would assume systems just revokes his access, pretty simple
As Larry Tribe said regarding Biden giving Saul the boot: "Live by the sword, die by the sword." Good riddance Saul and your union busting, anti-SSA policies - you're not logging into anything SSA on Monday, your PIV card is dead.
Saul can now complain about telework. And nobody listens. Buh, bye.
The SSA commissioner job should be considered a 4-year tenure based on the President's term. Four years is enough time to get stuff done.
After 2 years of incompetence by Saul and Black, I find it stunning that Mitch Mcconnell and some other senators want to stand by Saul since his nomination was passed in a bipartisan fashion. After he entered the agency he cut customer service, barely hired any staff, instituted a hiring freeze, caused a chaos and installed a culture of fear. After a certain point one must come to terms with a failed tenure and Saul was a failure. His refusal to quit and engage in that interview with the post, where he implied the workers are lazy and abuse telework, should disqualify him from future government service.
Lets go back to Covid19 and his refusal to take any action until the virus was rampant and infecting the public and employees. He had no leadership skills during a crisis as well as running the agency on a day to day basis. The agency was run by Saul from his home in NY. He terminated telework in November 2019, stayed home and ran the agency in to the ground through July 2021. The customers know the service is lacking, the staff are demoralized, the partners such as attorneys are aware of how bad things have become. I struggle to believe anyone can say Saul was a success. He should reflect on all his accomplishments, which are few to none.
White house must not liked his reopening plan to go back to pre-covid level of operations with no additional telework. Guess Saul found telework useless and white house wants telework to continue at high levels.
Saul was appointed on a bipartisan vote in Congress, then immediately started acting like a right wing dictator. Union busting and anti employee.
Also took actions that were thinly veiled attempts to knock disabled people off the rolls and make it harder for them to qualify.
He was against telework from day one (I heard the rumors at SSA) and terminated telework for everyone immediately with no evidence that it was being generally abused.
This ruined morale at SSA and was counter productive. It turned SSA. Employees against the Commissioner. Also it was a betrayal of the bipartisan Congressional. spirit which confirmed him as Commissioner.
Immediately the Democratic Senators started sending him letters demanding that he reinstate telework.
His ending telework like that ended up being a main reason he was fired. He later tried to be nice and make amends and let employees telework during the pandemic but it was too late. His extremist actions in his first months cooked his goose.
As I recall, that was the case back in the days under HHS. That said, I’m not upset that he is gone, just worry about the precedent it sets which is contrary to the intent of the six year term set by the Act.
Gruber. Nagle, and Dillion next please.
Saul giving an interview to the Post yesterday and apparently implying SSA employees were lazy and abusing telework? This seems very inappropriate and and insult to those SSA employees who have been working hard at home.
I tried read his whole Post interview but I ran into the paywall. Unless that quote was taken out of context about SSA workers abusing telework, he should apologize and never dare show his face around SSA again
The intent of the act is dead letter now, the Supreme Court ruled that all such term protections are unconstitutional. Every agency head is removable by the President at will.
Yes yes we get it Saul and Black were horrible for SSA. But let’s be clear, we all know that in some ways there was an alignment between Saul’s impulses and the predisposition of SSA senior leadership. Many changes Saul signed off on had been in the works long before he arrived. For example the regulation change that eliminated consideration of the inability to communicate in English. And yes Saul made his hate for telework clear on day one but many senior leaders had been resistant to telework long before Saul came on the scene. And there was many a leader chomping at the bit to implement Trump’s draconian anti-union and anti-employee EOs.
The point is that unless this new commissioner looks closely at what her senior leaders, advisers and policy makers have been doing or have in the works to do, that same group will continue pushing their own agendas and do their best to sabotage much needed improvement at SSA.
@9:58 am One would guess that this is just the beginning of the much needed housecleaning at SSA. Management at all levels needs to be changed. And, there needs to be much less micromanagement by managers at all levels who have no clue what folks they are supposedly managing do all day every day. Telework should be here to stay and, with it, a much lesser need to have so many management folks at hearing offices and field offices who do little work and even less actual management. Many of them are a residual of the haphazard HPI project of yesteryear. And hearing offices need to be run by lawyers since they are the legal operations aspect of SSA. To have folks who are not attorneys in management roles at hearing offices is pure folly.
Say goodbye to telework, at least at the field office level. The new acting commissioner sounds like she wants the offices open to the public like social service centers. Offices will be open by September.
So, to be clear, for President Biden (or any President), what prevents a President from firing or directing others to fire a federal employee for any reason without having to first document the basis for firing, considering past practice and laws and procedures, and following due process? What does this mean for SSA as an independent agency? Are those applauding this decision do so because of personal politics or beliefs but would protest loudly if the person fired agrees with their personal politics or beliefs? For those applauding this action, please do not complain when the "Biden Rule" is followed to remove someone you like.
8:43,
If the Supreme Court sticks to its recent decisions in the Seila Law and Collins cases, the the president can fire the head of an agency for any reason. The decisions do not address whether the president can fire rank-and-file federal employees for any reason, so that's still an open question.
Calling this the "Biden Rule" shows ignorance. The belief that presidents must be allowed to fire their subordinates for any reason is called "unitary executive theory," and Biden didn't invent it. He doesn't even support it. The rule was announced in Seila Law by the conservative Supreme Court Justices: Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh. If anything, you could call it the "Trump Rule," because he stacked the Court with Federalist Society judges who have argued for years that presidents should have king-like authority over the entire executive branch.
By firing Saul, Biden is simply making lemonade out of Republican lemons.
You seem really confused about what led to this situation. Trump wanted to fire the independent head of the CFPB and the Supreme Court ruled in his favor. From now on all heads of federal agencies will be political appointees. The only agencies the ruling impacts is SSA and the CFPB. Every other agency was already headed by a political appointees so I don't see how this is a big deal.
Also, career civil servants cannot be fired without cause. You don't seem to understand that there are two very distinct classes of federal employees: political appointees (who serves at the pleasure of the POTUS) and career civil servants (who don't). An ALJ or field office employee doesn't need to worry about being fired by the president lol.
Doesnt matter. Nothing will change. The only thing that will change is the name people use to complain about the exact same problems they have been complaining about the last 20 years. Nothing to see here, back to your knitting.
Uh, don't be so sure about ALJs being Civil Service protected. After Lucia, they are subject to the Appointments Clause.
Maybe they will now move to the middle for job security. If not, I'm sure reps can supply a list of those ripe for removal for incompetence.
Guess what, Saul is still rich, has no impact on him at all. Back to luxury and no hassles, a real win for him. I suspect he will vacation someplace that everyone here can only dream about.
It was obviously never about the money for him. Sure it has no financial impact but it has impact. He wanted to be commish or else he would have resigned when asked to by the president. When you have enough money that money no longer matters to you than other things do. He could have been vacationing since prior to his appointment and Trump never had to work a day in his life. Rich people seek political positions for power not money. It has an impact, now he's just another rich white dude at the country club.
1207, Saul is that you? It doesn't matter how rich you are or all the fancy places you will go because you can never get that Trump stink off of you. As the old saying goes, wherever you go, there you are. Bon voyage!
@ 12:07 So being rich is the end all be all. It means nothing to Saul that he was a failure in just 2 years as the SSA commish? If so, then being gone is a tremendous thing for the country.
"Failure" is in the eye of the beholder and who is spinning what information.
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