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What the Overruling of Humphrey’s Executor Does to the U.S. [1]

['Aspiring Polymath', 'Chitown Kev', 'Belinda Ridgewood', 'Bill In Portland Maine']

Date: 2026-06-30  

At the time of our first census in 1790 the United States had a population of slightly less that four million. Today we have a nation of 349,000,00. A staggeringly larger number. The constitution as established at that time if frozen into the current Supreme Court policies of “originalism”, our federal government will be crippled from functioning effectively in the modern world.

John Roberts has hated the concept of the truly independent federal agencies for decades and he finally has taken their scalps. Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, 295 U.S. 602 (1935) was the landmark decision that held that Congress may limit the power of the President to fire certain officials. The Court found that Congress has the authority to create quasi-legislative or quasi judicial agencies. The decision in part effectively reversed the previous line of cases that is generally known as the Lochner era for the 1897 case that prevented laws and agencies from regulating wages and working conditions. This line of cases prevailed until Humphreys essentially reversed it. The Lochner line of cases had severely held up the Roosevelt New Deal rendering its independent agencies unconstitutional. This had the effect of delaying the end of the depression and causing Roosevelts attempt to pack the Supreme Court.

Now lots of people believe that the New Deal did not bring the country out of the Depression but rather that WWII had that effect. In fact the New Deal had stimulated the economy, largely united the country and recovery was underway. Unfortunately a misguided attempt to balance the budget during his administration, which actually resulted in a balanced budget in 1937 led to the end of government stimulus and according to Keynesian economists caused a return of 1929 levels of industrial output. Another factor that led to the problem was massive opposition to the New Deal by business. The Federal Reserve also tightened the money supply severely in 1936 and 1937 fearing that the New Deal recovery would overheat the economy and cause inflation. None of that was true and business investment nearly ceased due to the Fed’s actions and the actions of business in opposition to the New Deal. Ultimately Roosevelt expanded federal agencies, and engaged in about $5 billion in deficit spending and recovery was underway again by 1938. Recovery continued slowly hindered by the Fed and business attitudes, but was at pre-depression levels in 1941 and was well above pre-depression levels after the war started.

Today’s economists almost universally agree that excessive cuts in government spending were the cause of the 1937 return to near depression state. In conjunction with monetary and business policies that reduced aggregate demand together with tax increases which in combination caused many Americans to lose their jobs with damaging effects on the economy.

I go through this history because WWII as well as our entire economy has been dependent on independent federal agencies. Quite simply the isolation of the agencies from unlimited political interference has meant that our government could cope with the conditions of the world an that despite the political winds of the moment certain acts of good governance would continue. The list of Federal Agencies did not start with the New Deal but the Federal Reserve is only one an its need for independence is obvious. Ironically the Supreme Court carved out a rather non-sensical exception for the Fed’s independence but it’s a limited exception. The return to Lochner legal decisions means that the very legality of New Deal style federal agencies will be in question. In any event they exist at the whim of a President if he can fire any employee of a federal agency.

Essentially a President now has personal hire and fire power over almost any federal employee. The Civil Service Act is called into serious question by this decision. Have you ever voted for a Democrat or campaigned for a Democrat? Have you ever written a post critical of the president? Have you ever made a decision that some friend of the president might not like. Well hello, you are now eligible to be fired. Welcome to the new 19th century when the spoils system dominated all appointments and the merit system did not exist.

Are you happy with the new FEMA, and with the Donald’s hands on management of federal agencies. The destruction by DOGE may have been just legalized by this decision. And now with its announcement expect a new round of firings and destruction of agencies that could make DOGE seem to have been just an opening shot. The level of firings may create a level of unemployment, that itself has the ability to bring on a recession. If Trump listens to any of his economic advisors he might worry about doing DOGE II. However, vengeance and hatred of regulatory agencies rules his mind, so I expect him to do everything he can to bring the regulatory agencies under political control of his incompetent cronies.

I submit that we cannot run the entire United States government on a spoils system dominated by politics. The level of specialized competence does not exist in the pool of political cronies, who people like Trump will appoint to run these agencies at all levels. The addition of corruption which is already manifesting itself at many agencies together with the general lack of ability to run the agencies like the FBI, the CDC, the FTC and the FDA speaks for itself. The new normal is going to be a federal government lacking competence, expertise, or ethics. What it will have is loyalty to the president in office. Nothing else will matter. All you have to do to keep your job is keep the president happy.

The unitary executive theory under which the Roberts Court operated will not serve to govern a nation of 350,000,000. The Trump maladministration of our government has show that conclusively. 18th century one man rule of a government which employed 3.4 million in 1990 won’t work. Ironically while complaining about our bloated government, both Obama and Biden shrunk the federal workforce. When Trump took over he has now shrunk the workforce to 2.035 million as of January 2026. After disastrous signs that he went way too far with DOGE and his other firings, a rehiring has begun and now the workforce is closer to 2,700,000 again. It should be noted that the numbers of people in federal employment is significantly lower by percentage in the U.S. than in other advanced industrialized countries. If you have experienced delays in getting Social Security problems addressed, or disaster relief loans or even a passport, you know how understaffed many federal agencies are.

The other thing this decision will do is discourage the employment of competent middle management in the federal government. Many of these people are dedicated to service and work for less than is available to them in private industry. They are no bloated incompetent bureaucrats. People with experience are leaving the federal workforce in numbers that are difficult to replace. They are leaving with institutional knowledge of how things get done that is not being replaced. Morale in federal agencies having to work under political cronies is at an all time low and this is reported to be the cause of their leaving long term federal service.

One of the goals all Republicans have had is to essentially destroy the federal government as a national government. Remember Grover Norquist and this line: “I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.” This line was met with almost universal acclaim from Republicans. They want it limited to collection of taxes for purposes of raising armies, and tariffs should be enough to do that. All other federal functions are better left to the states. If you don’t believe they think like this you haven’t read enough right wing drivel. The federal income tax has been opposed by conservatives forever. The Supreme Court forced the creating of a constitutional amendment for an income tax, when they ruled such a thing illegal.

The Supreme Court is a profoundly reactionary institution in our history. Brief periods of enlightenment have occurred but overall it has been a force of continuing reaction. It stands athwart history and progress whenever possible. Today’s decision overturning Humphrey’s Executor will go down in history as one of the darker days in U.S. legal history. The effective death of independent federal agencies mean a diminished United States, a country that cannot compete in the modern world, lacking in real expertise, ignorant of facts collected by those agencies and governed at all levels by incompetents and politics.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/6/30/800063013/community/what-the-overruling-of-humpreys-executor-does-to-the-u-s/

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