Document Type

Comment

Publication Title

Yale Journal on Regulation

Publication Date

2026

Abstract

For the first time in American history, the Supreme Court is poised to decide what it means for the president to remove a principal officer “for cause.” The case — which arises from the attempted removal of Lisa Cook, a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System — has major implications for central bank independence in the United States and, more broadly, for the U.S. administrative state. But given how long it has been since such offices were formally contested, courts and commentators have forgotten many aspects of the legal tradition governing “for cause” removal. In a new paper, we reconstruct the nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century law of public offices and offer a doctrinal framework to evaluate Trump v. Cook and to better understand the design of dozens of federal administrative agencies.

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