If the President Doesn’t Run a Bureaucracy, No One Does – That’s Authoritarianism

I will argue that the Constitution requires presidential control of executive agencies, explain why so-called independent agencies are unconstitutional and dangerous, quote key statements from recent hearings and court signals exactly as presented, examine the D.C. reaction to commissioners saying the obvious, and show why accountability through the presidency protects liberty rather than threatens it.

Happy New Year. May the best of it find you and yours — and the rest of it get lost before it finds you. While I was on a short holiday break, the debate over who runs the federal bureaucracy heated up again and it matters for every American.

The Supreme Court recently signaled it might let the president fire heads of independent agencies, a development that has caused predictable outrage in D.C. The reporting noted that the high court’s conservative majority appeared intent on overturning or effectively gutting a 90-year-old precedent that upheld restrictions on the president’s ability to fire leaders of independent agencies across the executive branch.

It is worth stating plainly: the notion of permanently insulated, unaccountable federal agencies is a constitutional invention of convenience by the swamp. The Constitution sets up three branches of government — Legislative, Executive and Judicial — and that’s the whole list. Any structure that leaves massive executive power outside of presidential control is a creation of administrative law, not the Founders.

Some defenders of the status quo argue agencies must be independent to protect the public from political influence. But independence in practice becomes permanence without accountability. If a bureaucracy can operate outside presidential oversight, it answers to no one elected and can expand authority indefinitely. That unchecked growth is the opposite of limited government.

The Constitution stipulates the federal government is a game of three players – and only three players: The Legislative, Executive and Judicial Branches – Articles I, II and III. That’s it – that’s the list.

Except over many decades of accrued sclerosis, DC has affixed an ever-growing gaggle of unconstitutional barnacles upon the Ship of State: The ‘independent agencies.’

Except per the Constitution – there is no such thing as an ‘independent agency.’ Every federal entity has to exist within one of the three aforementioned branches.

This is DC – illegally outsourcing responsibility and accountability….

The quoted passage nails the problem: D.C. has been building layers of bureaucracy that are effectively unaccountable. That means policy is shaped by unelected officials who can outlast presidents and Congress, and who face no real mechanism for removal when they abuse power. That is not conservative governance, it is creeping administrative rule.

Putting regulators under the Executive makes sense because agencies execute the laws Congress passes. Execution is an Article II function. If the president is charged with seeing laws faithfully executed, he must be able to direct the people who do that work. Practical governance requires a chain of command tied to the elected chief executive.

Some argue only certain agencies should be under presidential control, not all. But partial exceptions create perverse incentives and legal confusion. If some bodies are subject to the president and others are not, the results are inconsistent and invite litigation and manipulation. The cleaner constitutional answer is accountability through the Executive.

At a recent Senate hearing, the Federal Communications Commission chair made waves when he refused to call the agency independent in the traditional sense. The press coverage captured the panic in some corners of D.C., but the plain truth from that testimony landed where it should: the chair simply reflected a constitutional reality.

(W)hen questioned by Democrats about an agency long considered autonomous, suggested it was not insulated from Trump’s pressure.

“The FCC is not an independent agency,” Carr said.

That statement by Brendan Carr provoked an immediate, theatrical reaction: website edits and furious op-eds. But the spectacle obscures a more fundamental point — accepting the president’s authority over executive agencies is not authoritarian, it is constitutional. The alternative is letting bureaucrats wield enduring power without electoral accountability.

People who fear presidential control imagine it means arbitrary, unchecked rule. The real danger is the opposite: when rogue bureaucracies become the permanent rulers. Unelected officials imposing policy across administrations is how institutions ossify and liberty erodes. Accountability to voters through the presidency is the brake on that process.

Washington’s reflexive outrage at any attempt to reclaim accountability is predictable. The bureaucratic class benefits from ambiguity and insulation. But constitutional clarity helps rein in that tendency, restores proper separation of powers, and returns decisions to those who can be held politically responsible.

The fight ahead will shape whether Americans have a government that follows the rule of law and respects popular sovereignty, or whether a shadow administrative state continues to grow unchecked. Ensuring the president can direct the executive branch is not a power grab; it is restoring the constitutional order that protects freedom.