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Page Number: 15

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AXON ENTERPRISE, INC. v. FTC 

Opinion of the Court 

two layers of tenure protection were unconstitutionally in-
sulated from presidential control.  The officials challenged, 
though, were different.  They were members of the Public 
Company Accounting Oversight Board—an agency regulat-
ing  the  accounting  industry  under  the  SEC’s  oversight.  
When the Board opened an investigation of an accounting 
firm’s auditing practices, the firm took its Article II claim 
to district court.  This time we held that the court had ju-
risdiction of the action, based on the Thunder Basin factors. 
We found that the Exchange Act provided no “meaningful 
avenue of relief ” for the firm, given the separation between 
the Board and the Commission.  561 U. S., at 490–491 (in-
ternal quotation marks omitted).  Not every Board action, 
we  explained,  culminates  in  Commission  action—which 
alone  the statute  makes  reviewable  in a  court of  appeals. 
And even supposing the SEC took up a matter arising from 
the  Board’s  investigation,  the  firm’s  constitutional  chal-
lenge would be “collateral” to the subject of that proceeding. 
The  firm, we observed, “object[s] to the Board’s existence, 
not to any of its auditing standards.”  Id., at 490.  Finally, 
we  held,  the  firm’s  claim  was  “outside  the  Commission’s 
competence  and  expertise.”    Id.,  at  491.   It  raised  only  a 
“standard” issue of administrative and constitutional law, 
relating not at all to “considerations of agency policy.”  Ibid. 
(internal quotation marks and alterations omitted). 

B 

One  way  of  framing  the  question  we  must  decide  is 
whether the cases before us are more like Thunder Basin 
and Elgin or more like Free Enterprise Fund.  The answer 
appears from 30,000 feet not very hard.  Recall our task: to 
decide if a claim is “of the type” Congress thought belonged 
within  a statutory  scheme.  Thunder  Basin,  510  U. S.,  at 
212.  The claims here are of the same ilk as the one in Free 
Enterprise  Fund.   There,  the  complaint  alleged  that  the