Senator Schmitt Calls for the Restoration of Presidential Authority Over the Executive Branch

Schmitt Calls to Overturn Humphrey's Executor

WASHINGTON - Today, Senator Eric Schmitt (R-MO) joined Fox Business' Kudlow to discuss the need to overturn Humphrey's Executor and restore the President's constitutional authority to remove Executive Branch officials. Senator Schmitt previously filed an amicus brief to the Supreme Court urging the Court to overturn Humphrey's Executor.

Watch the full interview HERE

Senator Schmitt on Humphrey's Executor:

"The Founders never intended for these faceless bureaucrats in Washington D.C. to have this much influence over people's lives. It was 'we the people', not 'they the experts', right? This case that the Supreme Court is looking at, [the Trump v.] Slaughter case, it's very important, Larry. If you take a step back about 100 years ago, one of our worst presidents, Woodrow Wilson, began this march to the administrative state. And there was a [Supreme] Court case sprinkled in there about 90-years ago called Humphrey's Executor that basically said the President couldn't have real control over his own administration. The [Supreme] Court is about to, I think, I hope, overrule [Humphrey's Executor]. The American people elect one person - well, two with the Vice President - to handle the Article II branch. And the head of that Article II branch gets to decide the people that get to work in the Article II branch. This case, I think, the Supreme Court is going to rule it the right way. It will go a long way in reining in the administrative state, much like the [Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo] case last year did with this overturning the Chevron Deference that existed for a few decades as well."

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"There's also a very important, fundamental aspect to all this too, which is our Constitutional Republic was founded on this idea of accountability. Right now, I'm the United States Senator from Missouri. People can send me there, they can send me home, or they can send me back. There's a presidential election every four years, right? The Article III branch is a little bit different, but there's Senate confirmation involved there. Here, this fourth branch is accountable to no one, Larry, no one. And that is antithetical to, really, the design of our government. There's a real opportunity here, with some of the most recent cases that you referenced earlier, and this one, to reset the deck here and get it back to what it was always meant to be - where you have real accountability. I'll just give an example. One time, I was in a few years ago in northwest Missouri, and a farmer said, 'You know, Eric, I never remember electing or voting for the Deputy Under Secretary of the EPA.' There's a lot of wisdom in that, right. These people can write a guidance letter and destroy someone's life and livelihood, and you don't even know who they are. President Trump's trying to rein that in. I think the court will agree."

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"This managerial class has become something that people on the left love because they do things that people would never vote on, right. You would never pass the Green New Deal - even the Democrats in Congress couldn't that get that pass. But if you have some [executive] agency go do it by way of some rule or regulation, they get around it. We've got to put an end to that if we're going to get this economy going. We want more jobs. We want to lead the world. We got to open things up a little bit, and reining in these agencies and rogue bureaucrats is a great way to start."

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