From the Fact Check Desk: Could McCain 'Fire' the SEC Chairman?*

robtr,

If Bush CAN fire him, why hasn't he? He clearly did not do what he was hired to do.

This what Bush "commissioned" him to do:

"I've given Chris a clear mission: To continue to strengthen public trust in our markets so the American economy can continue to grow and create jobs. The nation is increasingly a nation of stock holders. A generation ago, only a small percentage of American families invested in stocks and bonds. Today, more than half of households are investing -- for their families and for their futures. Now more than ever, we must make sure Americans can rely upon the integrity of our markets."

All the posters who are insisting that the President can fire the SEC chairman are simply cutting and pasting from an article by a conservative attorney on the Weekly Standard's web site. But that argument begs the question: If the president actually has the power to fire the SEC chairman, why has that never happened even once in the history of the institution?

Fact Check?

"It's true that the SEC is an "independent agency," and that the statute creating the SEC (specifically, Section 4 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934) doesn't expressly state that the president can fire SEC commissioners. But the law on this point is well settled: As the D.C. Circuit reiterated as recently as last month, in Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, 537 F.3d 667, 668-69 (D.C. Cir. 2008), "[m]embers 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."

The courts have never said that Congress can completely prevent a president from firing officials of an independent agency. At best, Congress can limit the president to firing such officials only "for cause," and the term "for cause" is generally interpreted pretty broadly."

Why not leave the term "fact check" for someone who actually can check facts?

Susie, John McCain is not only close to Phil Gramm, who was the leader of deregulation, and John McCain VOTED for deregulation, one of his closest economic advisors is John Thain, the chief executive of Merrill Lynch. Merrrill Lynch - as in the firm that is close to the center of this mess. Both candidates have taken money from Wall Street - not just Obama, as your post suggests - and McCain has actually taken more than Obama (John Thain raised $500,000 alone).

Perhaps McCain got a little overenthusiastic about firing people due to the presence of the head of the Palin-McCain ticket on the podium.
She's fired nearly everyone she could whether they needed to be or not.

I agree with the guy who said we ought to fire the whole lot of them, inluding the former chair of the Commerce Committee on whose watch much of this happened.

The current chairman of the
SEC should be forced out for
gross negligence.

Under his watch he has allowed
unrestricted naked short
selling. He removed the
Uptick Rule in July 2007. The
Uptick Rule had regulated
short selling since the late
1930s until he did away with
it.

The fact checkers at the Annenberg Foundation run Factcheck-conveniently nonpartisan although Obama ran the Annenberg challenge with Bill Ayers- is wrong. Maybe instead of looking to the DNC they should check real legal facts. the SEC Chairman serves and can be removed by the President.

McCain's illiteracy is not
confined to just computers.

In legal matters also he's
severely challenged. The
president cannot fire the
chairman of the SEC.

Palin Email Hacker is Son of Democrat Tennessee State Senator Mike Kernell according to the FBI.
David Kernell, a college student has been positively identified as the perp who hacked Sarah Palin's Yahoo account.
State Rep. Mike Kernell said today that he was aware of Internet rumors about his son being the subject of speculation that he accessed the personal e-mail of vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
Asked whether he or his son, a student at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, had been contacted by authorities investigating the break-in of Palin's account, he responded:
"Me, no."
As far as his 20-year-old son, David, he said: "I can't say. That doesn't mean he has or hasn't (been contacted by investigators."
Kernell, D-Memphis, cited the father-son relationship.
He said he had talked to his son today, but that he talks to his son regularly.
He declined further comment.

Maybe when Obama grows up he will learn about how the government works.

“The Chairman of the SEC serves as such solely at the pleasure of the President.” Harvey L. Pitt & Karen L. Shapiro, Securities Regulation by Enforcement: A Look Ahead at the Next Decade, 7 Yale J. on Reg. 149, 280 n.557 (1990). Indeed, the Tenth Circuit so held in the Blinder, Robinson case cited above. See 855 F.2d at 681, stating that “as the President has the power to choose the chairman of the SEC from its commissioners to serve an indefinite term, it follows that the chairman serves at the pleasure of the President.”

Hence, when McCain said “The Chairman of the SEC serves at the appointment of the President,” he was right at the very least insofar as Cox’s position as Chairman (as opposed to his position as a commissioner) is concerned.

I truly don't think he has a clue

It's like when Palin keeps talking about putting the federal checkbook online when it has already been done and in fact was the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act that Barack Obama teamed up with a Republican to do.

She needs somes lessons.

Proceeding through a litany
of what he perceives to be
McCain missteps, Obama
mentioned that McCain had
recently "bragged about how,
as chairman of the Commerce
Committee in the Senate, he
had oversight of every part
of the economy. Well, all I
can say to Sen. McCain is
nice job."

BO on the stump

A quick follow-up - while he could fire Cox, I'd rather he appointed him to a cabinet position because he's smart, conservative and honest - if a bit unlucky to be here now.
It would be a more apt step in the right direction to have Sens. Dodd, Obama, Pelosi, Reid, et al taken out of the Congress in handcuffs. They are the ones who have plundered the accounts of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman, etc. over the years.

Actually, he could fire him, as was reiterated by the DC Circuit in the recent Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, "[m]embers 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."

Jake Tapper and Lisa Chinn have NOT DONE THEIR LEGAL HOMEWORK. There is but no question that the president has the power to fire the SEC Chairperson. While SEC Commissioners are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate for a five year term, the Chair is selected by the president under executive regulations. The commissioner who is designated as chairperson serves at the pleasure of the president, and can be removed as chair as the president sees fit. While a removed chair might still be able to hold onto his or her seat as a commissioner, and there is some judicial authority that say the president can fire a commissioner, he or she certainly has no legal claim to the chairperson's seat once the president has taken him or her out of that position. ABC News and the McCain campaign are woefully uninformed on this matter. Shame on both.

"I am fundamentally a deregulator."

McCain is trying to close the
barn door after the horse has
bolted.

The only thing we want to hear
from this old man is his
concession speech.

It's true that the SEC is an "independent agency," and that the statute creating the SEC (specifically, Section 4 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934) doesn't expressly state that the president can fire SEC commissioners. But the law on this point is well settled: As the D.C. Circuit reiterated as recently as last month, in Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, 537 F.3d 667, 668-69 (D.C. Cir. 2008), "[m]embers 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."

Steven, I vote for Focus on the Family. In particular, I vote that Sarah Palin focus on her family - which looks like it is in a world of hurt. I'd like to meet ten women who, when they have a 17-year old who is vulnerable and in trouble, and a high-needs kid - women from any background, who would put personal ambition before their families. I don't know any women like that. For that matter, I don't know a single man who would have done what Sarah Palin did either. This is family values?

As if. None of McCain's blustering is going to make a bit of difference to average Americans who can remember how many houses they own - or hope they still own one. All of us would be a lot better shape if John McCain and his friends had not spent the last 20 years deregulating every aspect of our economy and let the free market run itself. I didn't hear him whining about Wall Street before. If this is what deregulation does to Wall Street, imagine what it will mean when the free market economy has free reign over our health insurance and our lives.