This is just flatly incorrect. Humphrey's Executor (which may not be long for this world as precedent, anyway) lays out specific cases where "for cause" requirements on termination are Constitutional, but otherwise the President's power to dismiss subordinate officers of the executive branch is absolute.
The Court distinguished between executive officers and quasi-legislative or quasi-judicial officers. The Court held that the latter may be removed only with procedures consistent with statutory conditions enacted by Congress, but the former serve at the pleasure of the President and may be removed at his discretion. The Court ruled that the Federal Trade Commission was a quasi-legislative body because it adjudicated cases and promulgated rules. Thus, the President could not fire a member solely for political reasons. Therefore, Humphrey's firing was improper.
“If the law says the President cannot fire someone, or interfere in an agency’s work, then the President cannot.”
This is, indeed, flatly incorrect. Congress cannot pass a law requiring that the Secretary of State or Defense or Treasury be fired only for cause. The SCOTUS case knocking it down would likely be 9-0.
“Congress writes the laws and can make them say whatever they want” totally ignores separation-of-powers concerns that the Constitution and its guardians in Article III courts take very seriously.
> Congress cannot pass a law requiring that the Secretary of State or Defense or Treasury be fired only for cause. The SCOTUS case knocking it down would likely be 9-0.
No one is saying Congress can restrict the President from firing political appointees or his Cabinet.
We're talking about the quasi-legislative or quasi-judicial agencies here. In the case you cite, Humphrey was on the FTC, and Roosevelt tried to fire him. The Court said the President couldn't him because Congress wrote it in the law. That's exactly what the other poster was saying, so how are they flatly incorrect?
The quote I was referring to as “flatly wrong” is repeated above. Nowhere there or in the original post are the phrases “quasi-legislative” or “quasi-judicial”. Instead a much more general claim is made that the Congress’ power to constrain acts of the Executive is unlimited because they write the laws. That’s not at all how our system works.
The oral arguments in Selia Law v. CFPB may be enlightening here:
Just stop. The sentence before the one you said is flatly wrong mentions “independent agencies” — those are the “quasi-legislative” agencies like the FTC.
The other poster was right and you posted case law proving their point.
You’re begging the question: What makes an agency “independent”? The answer given by the original poster was “because Congress says so, and they can”. That is, again, flatly wrong.
Congress can’t reorganize the Treasury as an independent agency. Why not? Making the sole director of the CFPB dismissible only for cause was ruled unconstitutional. Why?
Taking the claim made by the original poster as accurate would lead you to get both of these important questions wrong.
Your comment is way too vague to be declaring anything as flat out wrong. At any rate, federal employees have numerous protections from being fired arbitrarily as laid out by the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, a law passed precisely to limit arbitrary firing of federal employees, especially for politically motivated reasons.
