When Congress creates an administrative agency, it can create either an (1) executive department or (2) independent agency.

Executive departments are run directly by the current administration and are headed by a single cabinet secretary who may be terminated at will by the president. They are thus directly influenced by politics. Examples are the State Department and Treasury Department. Independent agencies, by contrast, are designed by law to operate with a degree of autonomy so that decision-making is made on the basis of expertise and the national interest and not short-term political motivation. Thus, they are normally headed by a multi-member board composed of individuals that are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate with either explicit or implicit tenure protections. Those tenure protections help to ensure that independent agencies remain focused on the long-term public good, even when those actions may in the short-run be politically unpopular or even impossible. 

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Unfortunately, those tenure protections — which are both long-standing and blessed by Supreme Court precedent — are now under attack by both the president and the courts. For example, the chair of the National Labor Relations Board — a federal officer that Congress dictated could only be removed “upon notice and hearing, for neglect of duty or malfeasance in office” — was summarily fired by President Trump in January 2025, a termination that has set off a high-profile legal showdown over tenure protections for heads of independent agencies. And while much will no doubt be written on the legal merits of that question, we must not lose sight of the colossal practical implications that any such shift would have on the American government — and for the American people. 

Independent agencies have been woven into the fabric of American government for centuries now, so their elimination — and the corresponding increase of presidential power and control in areas Congress intentionally imposed limitations — will have impacts far beyond any one legal case. Those impacts will include a critical loss of agency expertise as well as an undue centralization of power that Congress meant to keep dispersed to avoid ill-advised, short-term decisionmaking. They also include the potential for corruption and self-dealing if agency heads are motivated to pursue the president’s personal interests above all else (including agency expertise).

The starting point for any such discussion of the potential shock waves and ill-effects of any novel restriction on independent agencies has to be the Federal Reserve, perhaps the classic example of why expert independent agencies are necessary. The Federal Reserve controls the nation’s monetary policy by setting the federal funds rate, a job that requires political insulation so that the political temptation for politicians to run an expansionary monetary policy does not lead to runaway inflation that makes all Americans poorer. And the nation loses when those political safeguards fail — as they did during the 1970s when President Nixon pressured the Federal Reserve into improvidently lowering rates before the 1972 election, which resulted in a decade of stagflation and saw interest rates hit over 19% before inflation was cured.

But the Federal Reserve is far from the only expert independent agency that promotes the long-term public good. Indeed, while public attention can focus on the independent agencies frequently in the news — such as the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Commodities Futures Trading Commission — many other independent agencies do critical work for the public good that could be imperiled if they are staffed with political lackeys rather than insulated subject matter experts. For example, the National Transportation Safety Board investigates aviation, maritime, and highway accidents — lifesaving work that requires a willingness to criticize failures by officials and potentially powerful donors in order to identify past errors and prevent future accidents. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission oversees nuclear safety, where mistakes and accidents could harm Americans for centuries due to the half-life of some radioactive materials. And the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the National Credit Union Administration provide deposit insurance for banks and credit unions respectively, thereby helping to prevent bank runs and ensure the stability of the banking system. 

The above are just a few of the independent agencies that perform critically important work for the public good. We could engage in similar explanations for any number of other agencies that most Americans have never heard of. So as the executive assaults and court challenges to independent agencies unfold over the next few years, it is important to remain focused on the stakes for everyday Americans and not just the legal odds of one side or the other prevailing. Independent agencies helped create the fabric of modern life for Americans, and have helped protect everything from the cars we drive and the airplanes we ride, to the products we give our children, to the water we drink and the air we breathe, and the money in our pockets and our bank accounts. In other words, a novel constitutional experiment of radically expanding presidential power and control over independent agencies despite clear Congressional protections risks chaos, confusion, and short-sighted decision making that could hurt anyone and everyone in the United States.