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FINANCIAL OVERSIGHT AND MANAGEMENT BD. FOR 
PUERTO RICO v. AURELIUS INVESTMENT, LLC 
Opinion of the Court 

powers  of  Government—legislative,  executive,  and  judi-
cial—with each branch serving different functions.  But the 
Constitution  requires  cooperation  among  the  three 
branches in specified areas.  Thus, to become law, proposed
legislation requires the agreement of both Congress and the
President  (or,  a  supermajority  in  Congress).  See  INS  v. 
Chadha, 462 U. S. 919, 955 (1983) (noting that the Consti-
tution  prescribes  only  four  specific  actions  that  Congress
can take without bicameralism and presentment).  At the 
same  time,  legislation  must  be  consistent  with  constitu-
tional constraints, and we usually look to the Judiciary as
the ultimate interpreter of those constraints.

The Appointments Clause reflects a similar allocation of 
responsibility, between President and Senate, in cases in-
volving appointment to high federal office.  That Clause re-
flects the Founders’ reaction to “one of [their] generation’s 
greatest  grievances  against  [pre-Revolutionary]  executive 
power,” the manipulation of appointments.  Freytag v. Com-
missioner, 501 U. S. 868, 883 (1991); see also The Federalist 
No. 76, p. 455 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961) (A. Hamilton) (the Ap-
pointments Clause helps to preserve democratic accounta-
bility).  The Founders addressed their concerns with the ap-
pointment power by both concentrating it and distributing
it.  On the one hand, they ensured that primary responsi-
bility  for  nominations  would  fall  on  the  President,  whom 
they  deemed  “less  vulnerable  to  interest-group  pressure
and personal favoritism” than a collective body.  Edmond v. 
United States, 520 U. S. 651, 659 (1997).  See also The Fed-
eralist No. 76, at 455 (“The sole and undivided responsibil-
ity of one man will naturally beget a livelier sense of duty 
and a more exact regard to reputation”).  On the other hand, 
they  ensured  that  the  Senate’s  advice  and  consent  power 
would provide “an excellent check upon a spirit of favorit-
ism in the President and a guard against the appointment 
of unfit characters.”  NLRB v. SW General, Inc., 580 U. S. 
___,  ___  (2017)  (slip  op.,  at  2)  (internal  quotation  marks