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Page Number: 26.0

6 

LUCIA v. SEC 

BREYER, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part 
Opinion of BREYER, J. 

scheme.  See  Ramspeck  v.  Federal  Trial  Examiners  Con-
ference,  345  U. S.  128,  130  (1953);  Wong  Yang  Sung  v. 
McGrath, 339 U. S. 33, 46 (1950).  Before the Administra-
tive Procedure Act, hearing examiners “were in a depend-
ent  status”  to  their  employing  agency,  with  their  classifi-
cation, compensation, and promotion all dependent on how 
the  agency  they  worked  for  rated  them.  Ramspeck,  345 
U. S.,  at  130.  As  a  result  of  that  dependence,  “[m]any 
complaints were voiced against the actions of the hearing
examiners,  it  being  charged  that  they  were  mere  tools  of 
the agency concerned and subservient to the agency heads 
in  making  their  proposed  findings  of  fact  and  recommen-
dations.”  Id.,  at  131.    The  Administrative  Procedure  Act 
responded  to  those  complaints  by  giving  administrative
law  judges  “independence  and  tenure  within  the  existing 
Civil  Service  system.”  Id.,  at  132;  cf.  Wong  Yang  Sung, 
supra, at 41–46 (referring to removal protections as among 
the  Administrative  Procedure  Act’s  “safeguards  . . .  in-
tended to ameliorate” the  perceived “evils” of commingling 
of adjudicative and prosecutorial functions in agencies). 

If  the  Free  Enterprise  Fund  Court’s  holding  applies
equally to the administrative law judges—and I stress the 
“if ”—then  to  hold  that  the  administrative  law  judges  are 
“Officers  of  the  United  States”  is,  perhaps,  to  hold  that 
their  removal  protections  are  unconstitutional.    This 
would  risk  transforming  administrative  law  judges  from
independent  adjudicators  into  dependent  decisionmakers, 
serving  at  the  pleasure  of  the  Commission.    Similarly,  to
apply  Free  Enterprise  Fund’s  holding  to  high-level  civil 
servants  threatens  to  change  the  nature  of  our  merit-
based civil service as it has existed from the time of Presi-
dent Chester Alan Arthur.  See Free Enterprise Fund, 561 
U. S., at 540–542 (BREYER, J., dissenting).

I  have  stressed  the  words  “if ”  and  “perhaps”  in  the 
previous  paragraph  because  Free  Enterprise  Fund’s  hold-
ing may not invalidate the removal protections applicable