Senate Confirms Federal Judge Who Said President Controls Independent Agencies
“All agencies, including the so-called independent agencies, must answer to the President,” she previously wrote.
The Senate has confirmed Neomi Rao, an administration official who has argued that the president may remove members of independent agencies—presumably including the NCUA—to a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.
Voting 53-46, the Senate confirmed Neomi Rao, director of the Office of Management and Budget’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs for the position. She replaces Brett Kavanaugh, who left the position when he was nominated as a U.S. Supreme Court Justice.
Rao, the founder and director of George Mason’s Center for the Study of the Administrative State, had come under fire for her writings about sexual assault.
However, critics also have cited her position on independent agencies while at OIRA and in her previous positions.
“Rao, like many other Trump nominees and appointees, supports an expansive view of executive power,” the progressive Alliance for Justice said, in an analysis explaining why it was opposing the nomination.
The Alliance continue, “She has advocated vigorously for the President to obtain complete control of the executive branch – most notably independent agencies – where Congress has specifically enacted legislation to insulate agencies and agency officers from political influence.”
Rao has not specifically written about the NCUA board and at OIRA; she did not test her theory on independent agencies.
However, in law review articles and congressional testimony, she has said that the president has power over independent agencies that has never been used or challenged.
That power includes the ability to at will remove a member of an independent agency board – a greatly expanded view of presidential authority.
“All agencies, including the so-called independent agencies, must answer to the President,” she wrote in a 2014 article in the Alabama Law Review.
She added, “The President must be able to remove these officers at will and Congress cannot limit or regulate this authority.”