The World of Financial Regulation Gets Weird...Again

There ’s yet more strangeness afoot in the world of financial regulation.  No, it’s not theCFPB this time.   It’s the generally more staid Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).  Earlier this week, the Department of Justiceweighed in onLucia v. SEC, a case challenging the constitutionality of the SEC ’s in-house judges, known as Administrative Law Judges (ALJs).  What is strange is that the DOJ sided with Raymond Lucia andagainst the SEC.   Seemingly in response, the SEC tookaction and ratified the appointment of its ALJs, a move it had been resisting for some time.  The case is currently with the Supreme Court where the Court is considering whether it will hear and decide the matter.   The question is whether ALJs are “mere employees” or are instead “inferior officers.”  If the latter, their appointment is subject to theappointments clause in the Constitution, which permits Congress to “vest the appointment of such inferior officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of departments.”  Since the process for appointing ALJs has (until recently) not been done by any of these, if they are indeed inferior officers, their appointmen t would be unconstitutional. Cato has filed anamicusbrief in support of Lucia.   Given the great discretion that ALJs wield – hearing and ruling on both the admissibility and credibility of evidence, presiding over hearings, and issuing opinions – it is strange to s...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs