Given the little dust-up over the Senator McCain’s comment that he would remove Christopher Cox as Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and questions as to whether the President has such authority, I thought it would be interesting to quote portions of the D.C. Circuit’s majority opinion in Free Enterprise Fund v. PCAOB on the subject:
Members of the Commission, in turn, are appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate and subject to removal by the President for cause; its chairman is selected by and serves at the pleasure of the President. (p. 3)
independent agencies such as the Commission by definition enjoy a degree of autonomy in
conducting their affairs, including staffing and operations. Yet this independence is not without limits. In addition to the ability to appoint Commissioners, 15 U.S.C.