Opinion ID: 109380
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: the federal election commission

Text: The 1974 amendments to the Act create an eight-member Federal Election Commission (Commission) and vest in it primary and substantial responsibility for administering and enforcing the Act. The question that we address in this portion of the opinion is whether, in view of the manner in which a majority of its members are appointed, the Commission may under the Constitution exercise the powers conferred upon it. We find it unnecessary to parse the complex statutory provisions in order to sketch the full sweep of the Commission's authority. It will suffice for present purposes to describe what appear to be representative examples of its various powers. Chapter 14 of Title 2 [148] makes the Commission the principal repository of the numerous reports and statements which are required by that chapter to be filed by those engaging in the regulated political activities. Its duties under § 438 (a) with respect to these reports and statements include filing and indexing, making them available for public inspection, preservation, and auditing and field investigations. It is directed to serve as a national clearinghouse for information in respect to the administration of elections. § 438 (b). Beyond these recordkeeping, disclosure, and investigative functions, however, the Commission is given extensive rulemaking and adjudicative powers. Its duty under § 438 (a) (10) is to prescribe suitable rules and regulations to carry out the provisions of . . . chapter [14]. Under § 437d (a) (8) the Commission is empowered to make such rules as are necessary to carry out the provisions of this Act. [149] Section 437d (a) (9) authorizes it to formulate general policy with respect to the administration of this Act and enumerated sections of Title 18's Criminal Code, [150] as to all of which provisions the Commission has primary jurisdiction with respect to [their] civil enforcement. § 437c (b). [151] The Commission is authorized under § 437f (a) to render advisory opinions with respect to activities possibly violating the Act, the Title 18 sections, or the campaign funding provisions of Title 26, [152] the effect of which is that [n]otwithstanding any other provision of law, any person with respect to whom an advisory opinion is rendered . . . who acts in good faith in accordance with the provisions and findings [thereof] shall be presumed to be in compliance with the [statutory provision] with respect to which such advisory opinion is rendered. § 437f (b). In the course of administering the provisions for Presidential campaign financing, the Commission may authorize convention expenditures which exceed the statutory limits. 26 U. S. C. § 9008 (d) (3) (1970 ed., Supp. IV). The Commission's enforcement power is both direct and wide ranging. It may institute a civil action for (i) injunctive or other relief against any acts or practices which constitute or will constitute a violation of this Act, § 437g (a) (5); (ii) declaratory or injunctive relief as may be appropriate to implement or con[s]true any provisions of Chapter 95 of Title 26, governing administration of funds for Presidential election campaigns and national party conventions, 26 U. S. C. § 9011 (b) (1) (1970 ed., Supp. IV); and (iii) such injunctive relief as is appropriate to implement any provision of Chapter 96 of Title 26, governing the payment of matching funds for Presidential primary campaigns, 26 U. S. C. § 9040 (c) (1970 ed., Supp. IV). If after the Commission's post-disbursement audit of candidates receiving payments under Chapter 95 or 96 it finds an overpayment, it is empowered to seek repayment of all funds due the Secretary of the Treasury. 26 U. S. C. §§ 9010 (b), 9040 (b) (1970 ed., Supp. IV). In no respect do the foregoing civil actions require the concurrence of or participation by the Attorney General; conversely, the decision not to seek judicial relief in the above respects would appear to rest solely with the Commission. [153] With respect to the referenced Title 18 sections, § 437g (a) (7) provides that if, after notice and opportunity for a hearing before it, the Commission finds an actual or threatened criminal violation, the Attorney General upon request by the Commission. . . shall institute a civil action for relief. Finally, as [a]dditional enforcement authority, § 456 (a) authorizes the Commission, after notice and opportunity for hearing, to make a finding that a person . . . while a candidate for Federal office, failed to file a required report of contributions or expenditures. If that finding is made within the applicable limitations period for prosecutions, the candidate is thereby disqualified from becoming a candidate in any future election for Federal office for a period of time beginning on the date of such finding and ending one year after the expiration of the term of the Federal office for which such person was a candidate. [154] The body in which this authority is reposed consists of eight members. [155] The Secretary of the Senate and the Clerk of the House of Representatives are ex officio members of the Commission without the right to vote. Two members are appointed by the President pro tempore of the Senate upon the recommendations of the majority leader of the Senate and the minority leader of the Senate. [156] Two more are to be appointed by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, likewise upon the recommendations of its respective majority and minority leaders. The remaining two members are appointed by the President. Each of the six voting members of the Commission must be confirmed by the majority of both Houses of Congress, and each of the three appointing authorities is forbidden to choose both of their appointees from the same political party.
Appellants argue that given the Commission's extensive powers the method of choosing its members under § 437c (a) (1) runs afoul of the separation of powers embedded in the Constitution, and urge that as presently constituted the Commission's existence be held unconstitutional by this Court. Before embarking on this or any related inquiry, however, we must decide whether these issues are properly before us. Because of the Court of Appeals' emphasis on lack of ripeness of the issue relating to the method of appointment of the members of the Commission, we find it necessary to focus particularly on that consideration in this section of our opinion. We have recently recognized the distinction between jurisdictional limitations imposed by Art. III and [p]roblems of prematurity and abstractness that may prevent adjudication in all but the exceptional case. Socialist Labor Party v. Gilligan, 406 U. S. 583, 588 (1972). In Regional Rail Reorganization Act Cases, 419 U. S. 102, 140 (1974), we stated that ripeness is peculiarly a question of timing, and therefore the passage of months between the time of the decision of the Court of Appeals and our present ruling is of itself significant. We likewise observed in the Reorganization Act Cases: Thus, occurrence of the conveyance allegedly violative of Fifth Amendment rights is in no way hypothetical or speculative. Where the inevitability of the operation of a statute against certain individuals is patent, it is irrelevant to the existence of a justiciable controversy that there will be a time delay before the disputed provisions will come into effect. Id., at 143. The Court of Appeals held that of the five specific certified questions directed at the Commission's authority, only its powers to render advisory opinions and to authorize excessive convention expenditures were ripe for adjudication. The court held that the remaining aspects of the Commission's authority could not be adjudicated because [in] its present stance, this litigation does not present the court with the concrete facts that are necessary to an informed decision. [157] 171 U. S. App. D. C., at 244, 519 F. 2d, at 893. Since the entry of judgment by the Court of Appeals, the Commission has undertaken to issue rules and regulations under the authority of § 438 (a) (10). While many of its other functions remain as yet unexercised, the date of their all but certain exercise is now closer by several months than it was at the time the Court of Appeals ruled. Congress was understandably most concerned with obtaining a final adjudication of as many issues as possible litigated pursuant to the provisions of § 437h. Thus, in order to decide the basic question whether the Act's provision for appointment of the members of the Commission violates the Constitution, we believe we are warranted in considering all of those aspects of the Commission's authority which have been presented by the certified questions. [158] Party litigants with sufficient concrete interests at stake may have standing to raise constitutional questions of separation of powers with respect to an agency designated to adjudicate their rights. Palmore v. United States, 411 U. S. 389 (1973); Glidden Co. v. Zdanok, 370 U. S. 530 (1962); Coleman v. Miller, 307 U. S. 433 (1939). In Glidden, of course, the challenged adjudication had already taken place, whereas in this case appellants' claim is of impending future rulings and determinations by the Commission. But this is a question of ripeness, rather than lack of case or controversy under Art. III, and for the reasons to which we have previously adverted we hold that appellants' claims as they bear upon the method of appointment of the Commission's members may be presently adjudicated.
Appellants urge that since Congress has given the Commission wide-ranging rulemaking and enforcement powers with respect to the substantive provisions of the Act, Congress is precluded under the principle of separation of powers from vesting in itself the authority to appoint those who will exercise such authority. Their argument is based on the language of Art. II, § 2, cl. 2, of the Constitution, which provides in pertinent part as follows: [The President] shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint. . . all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments. Appellants' argument is that this provision is the exclusive method by which those charged with executing the laws of the United States may be chosen. Congress, they assert, cannot have it both ways. If the Legislature wishes the Commission to exercise all of the conferred powers, then its members are in fact Officers of the United States and must be appointed under the Appointments Clause. But if Congress insists upon retaining the power to appoint, then the members of the Commission may not discharge those many functions of the Commission which can be performed only by Officers of the United States, as that term must be construed within the doctrine of separation of powers. Appellee Commission and amici in support of the Commission urge that the Framers of the Constitution, while mindful of the need for checks and balances among the three branches of the National Government, had no intention of denying to the Legislative Branch authority to appoint its own officers. Congress, either under the Appointments Clause or under its grants of substantive legislative authority and the Necessary and Proper Clause in Art. I, is in their view empowered to provide for the appointment to the Commission in the manner which it did because the Commission is performing appropriate legislative functions. The majority of the Court of Appeals recognized the importance of the doctrine of separation of powers which is at the heart of our Constitution, and also recognized the principle enunciated in Springer v. Philippine Islands, 277 U. S. 189 (1928), that the Legislative Branch may not exercise executive authority by retaining the power to appoint those who will execute its laws. But it described appellants' argument based upon Art. II, § 2, cl. 2, as strikingly syllogistic, and concluded that Congress had sufficient authority under the Necessary and Proper Clause of Art. I of the Constitution not only to establish the Commission but to appoint the Commission's members. As we have earlier noted, it upheld the constitutional validity of congressional vesting of certain authority in the Commission, and concluded that the question of the constitutional validity of the vesting of its remaining functions was not yet ripe for review. The three dissenting judges in the Court of Appeals concluded that the method of appointment for the Commission did violate the doctrine of separation of powers.
We do not think appellants' arguments based upon Art. II, § 2, cl. 2, of the Constitution may be so easily dismissed as did the majority of the Court of Appeals. Our inquiry of necessity touches upon the fundamental principles of the Government established by the Framers of the Constitution, and all litigants and all of the courts which have addressed themselves to the matter start on common ground in the recognition of the intent of the Framers that the powers of the three great branches of the National Government be largely separate from one another. James Madison, writing in the Federalist No. 47, [159] defended the work of the Framers against the charge that these three governmental powers were not entirely separate from one another in the proposed Constitution. He asserted that while there was some admixture, the Constitution was nonetheless true to Montesquieu's well-known maxim that the legislative, executive, and judicial departments ought to be separate and distinct: The reasons on which Montesquieu grounds his maxim are a further demonstration of his meaning. `When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person or body,' says he, `there can be no liberty, because apprehensions may arise lest the same monarch or senate should enact tyrannical laws to execute them in a tyrannical manner.' Again: `Were the power of judging joined with the legislative, the life and liberty of the subject would be exposed to arbitrary control, for the judge would then be the legislator. Were it joined to the executive power, the judge might behave with all the violence of an oppressor. ' Some of these reasons are more fully explained in other passages; but briefly stated as they are here, they sufficiently establish the meaning which we have put on this celebrated maxim of this celebrated author. [160] Yet it is also clear from the provisions of the Constitution itself, and from the Federalist Papers, that the Constitution by no means contemplates total separation of each of these three essential branches of Government. The President is a participant in the lawmaking process by virtue of his authority to veto bills enacted by Congress. The Senate is a participant in the appointive process by virtue of its authority to refuse to confirm persons nominated to office by the President. The men who met in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787 were practical statesmen, experienced in politics, who viewed the principle of separation of powers as a vital check against tyranny. But they likewise saw that a hermetic sealing off of the three branches of Government from one another would preclude the establishment of a Nation capable of governing itself effectively. Mr. Chief Justice Taft, writing for the Court in Hampton & Co. v. United States, 276 U. S. 394 (1928), after stating the general principle of separation of powers found in the United States Constitution, went on to observe: [T]he rule is that in the actual administration of the government Congress or the Legislature should exercise the legislative power, the President or the State executive, the Governor, the executive power, and the Courts or the judiciary the judicial power, and in carrying out that constitutional division into three branches it is a breach of the National fundamental law if Congress gives up its legislative power and transfers it to the President, or to the Judicial branch, or if by law it attempts to invest itself or its members with either executive power or judicial power. This is not to say that the three branches are not co-ordinate parts of one government and that each in the field of its duties may not invoke the action of the two other branches in so far as the action invoked shall not be an assumption of the constitutional field of action of another branch. In determining what it may do in seeking assistance from another branch, the extent and character of that assistance must be fixed according to common sense and the inherent necessities of the governmental co-ordination. Id., at 406. More recently, Mr. Justice Jackson, concurring in the opinion and the judgment of the Court in Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U. S. 579, 635 (1952), succinctly characterized this understanding: While the Constitution diffuses power the better to secure liberty, it also contemplates that practice will integrate the dispersed powers into a workable government. It enjoins upon its branches separateness but interdependence, autonomy but reciprocity. The Framers regarded the checks and balances that they had built into the tripartite Federal Government as a self-executing safeguard against the encroachment or aggrandizement of one branch at the expense of the other. As Madison put it in Federalist No. 51: This policy of supplying, by opposite and rival interests, the defect of better motives, might be traced through the whole system of human affairs, private as well as public. We see it particularly displayed in all the subordinate distributions of power, where the constant aim is to divide and arrange the several offices in such a manner as that each may be a check on the otherthat the private interest of every individual may be a sentinel over the public rights. These inventions of prudence cannot be less requisite in the distribution of the supreme powers of the State. [161] This Court has not hesitated to enforce the principle of separation of powers embodied in the Constitution when its application has proved necessary for the decisions of cases or controversies properly before it. The Court has held that executive or administrative duties of a nonjudicial nature may not be imposed on judges holding office under Art. III of the Constitution. United States v. Ferreira, 13 How. 40 (1852); Hayburn's Case, 2 Dall. 409 (1792). The Court has held that the President may not execute and exercise legislative authority belonging only to Congress. Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, supra . In the course of its opinion in that case, the Court said: In the framework of our Constitution, the President's power to see that the laws are faithfully executed refutes the idea that he is to be a law-maker. The Constitution limits his functions in the lawmaking process to the recommending of laws he thinks wise and the vetoing of laws he thinks bad. And the Constitution is neither silent nor equivocal about who shall make laws which the President is to execute. The first section of the first article says that `All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States . . . .'  343 U. S., at 587-588. More closely in point to the facts of the present case is this Court's decision in Springer v. Philippine Islands, 277 U. S. 189 (1928), where the Court held that the legislature of the Philippine Islands could not provide for legislative appointment to executive agencies.
The principle of separation of powers was not simply an abstract generalization in the minds of the Framers: it was woven into the document that they drafted in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787. Article I, § 1, declares: All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States. Article II, § 1, vests the executive power in a President of the United States of America, and Art. III, § 1, declares that The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The further concern of the Framers of the Constitution with maintenance of the separation of powers is found in the so-called Ineligibility and Incompatibility Clauses contained in Art. I, § 6: No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been encreased during such time; and no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office. It is in the context of these cognate provisions of the document that we must examine the language of Art. II. § 2, cl. 2, which appellants contend provides the only authorization for appointment of those to whom substantial executive or administrative authority is given by statute. Because of the importance of its language, we again set out the provision: [The President] shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments. The Appointments Clause could, of course, be read as merely dealing with etiquette or protocol in describing Officers of the United States, but the drafters had a less frivolous purpose in mind. This conclusion is supported by language from United States v. Germaine, 99 U. S. 508, 509-510 (1879): The Constitution for purposes of appointment very clearly divides all its officers into two classes. The primary class requires a nomination by the President and confirmation by the Senate. But foreseeing that when offices became numerous, and sudden removals necessary, this mode might be inconvenient, it was provided that, in regard to officers inferior to those specially mentioned, Congress might by law vest their appointment in the President alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of departments. That all persons who can be said to hold an office under the government about to be established under the Constitution were intended to be included within one or the other of these modes of appointment there can be but little doubt.  (Emphasis supplied.) We think that the term Officers of the United States as used in Art. II, defined to include all persons who can be said to hold an office under the government in United States v. Germaine, supra , is a term intended to have substantive meaning. We think its fair import is that any appointee exercising significant authority pursuant to the laws of the United States is an Officer of the United States, and must, therefore, be appointed in the manner prescribed by § 2, cl. 2, of that Article. If all persons who can be said to hold an office under the government about to be established under the Constitution were intended to be included within one or the other of these modes of appointment, United States v. Germaine, supra , it is difficult to see how the members of the Commission may escape inclusion. If a postmaster first class, Myers v. United States, 272 U. S. 52 (1926), and the clerk of a district court, Ex parte Hennen, 13 Pet. 230 (1839), are inferior officers of the United States within the meaning of the Appointments Clause, as they are, surely the Commissioners before us are at the very least such inferior Officers within the meaning of that Clause. [162] Although two members of the Commission are initially selected by the President, his nominations are subject to confirmation not merely by the Senate, but by the House of Representatives as well. The remaining four voting members of the Commission are appointed by the President pro tempore of the Senate and by the Speaker of the House. While the second part of the Clause authorizes Congress to vest the appointment of the officers described in that part in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments, neither the Speaker of the House nor the President pro tempore of the Senate comes within this language. The phrase Heads of Departments, used as it is in conjunction with the phrase Courts of Law, suggests that the Departments referred to are themselves in the Executive Branch or at least have some connection with that branch. While the Clause expressly authorizes Congress to vest the appointment of certain officers in the Courts of Law, the absence of similar language to include Congress must mean that neither Congress nor its officers were included within the language Heads of Departments in this part of cl. 2. Thus with respect to four of the six voting members of the Commission, neither the President, the head of any department, nor the Judiciary has any voice in their selection. The Appointments Clause specifies the method of appointment only for Officers of the United States whose appointment is not otherwise provided for in the Constitution. But there is no provision of the Constitution remotely providing any alternative means for the selection of the members of the Commission or for anybody like them. Appellee Commission has argued, and the Court of Appeals agreed, that the Appointments Clause of Art. II should not be read to exclude the inherent power of Congress to appoint its own officers to perform functions necessary to that body as an institution. But there is no need to read the Appointments Clause contrary to its plain language in order to reach the result sought by the Court of Appeals. Article I, § 3, cl. 5, expressly authorizes the selection of the President pro tempore of the Senate, and § 2, cl. 5, of that Article provides for the selection of the Speaker of the House. Ranking nonmembers, such as the Clerk of the House of Representatives, are elected under the internal rules of each House [163] and are designated by statute as officers of the Congress. [164] There is no occasion for us to decide whether any of these member officers are Officers of the United States whose appointment is otherwise provided for within the meaning of the Appointments Clause, since even if they were such officers their appointees would not be. Contrary to the fears expressed by the majority of the Court of Appeals, nothing in our holding with respect to Art. II, § 2, cl. 2, will deny to Congress all power to appoint its own inferior officers to carry out appropriate legislative functions. [165] Appellee Commission and amici contend somewhat obliquely that because the Framers had no intention of relegating Congress to a position below that of the co-equal Judicial and Executive Branches of the National Government, the Appointments Clause must somehow be read to include Congress or its officers as among those in whom the appointment power may be vested. But the debates of the Constitutional Convention, and the Federalist Papers, are replete with expressions of fear that the Legislative Branch of the National Government will aggrandize itself at the expense of the other two branches. [166] The debates during the Convention, and the evolution of the draft version of the Constitution, seem to us to lend considerable support to our reading of the language of the Appointments Clause itself. An interim version of the draft Constitution had vested in the Senate the authority to appoint Ambassadors, public Ministers, and Judges of the Supreme Court, and the language of Art. II as finally adopted is a distinct change in this regard. We believe that it was a deliberate change made by the Framers with the intent to deny Congress any authority itself to appoint those who were Officers of the United States. The debates on the floor of the Convention reflect at least in part the way the change came about. On Monday, August 6, 1787, the Committee on Detail to which had been referred the entire draft of the Constitution reported its draft to the Convention, including the following two articles that bear on the question before us: [167] Article IX, § 1: The Senate of the United States shall have power . . . to appoint Ambassadors, and Judges of the Supreme Court. Article X, § 2: [The President] shall commission all the officers of the United States; and shall appoint officers in all cases not otherwise provided for by this Constitution. It will be seen from a comparison of these two articles that the appointment of Ambassadors and Judges of the Supreme Court was confided to the Senate, and that the authority to appoint not merely nominate, but to actually appointall other officers was reposed in the President. During a discussion of a provision in the same draft from the Committee on Detail which provided that the Treasurer of the United States should be chosen by both Houses of Congress, Mr. Read moved to strike out that clause, leaving the appointment of the Treasurer as of other officers to the Executive. [168] Opposition to Read's motion was based, not on objection to the principle of executive appointment, but on the particular nature of the office of the Treasurer. [169] On Thursday, August 23, the Convention voted to insert after the word Ambassadors in the text of draft Art. IX the words and other public Ministers. Immediately afterwards, the section as amended was referred to the Committee of Five. [170] The following day the Convention took up Art. X. Roger Sherman objected to the draft language of § 2 because it conferred too much power on the President, and proposed to insert after the words not otherwise provided for by this Constitution the words or by law. This motion was defeated by a vote of nine States to one. [171] On September 3 the Convention debated the Ineligibility and Incompatibility Clauses which now appear in Art. I, and made the Ineligibility Clause somewhat less stringent. [172] Meanwhile, on Friday, August 31, a motion had been carried without opposition to refer such parts of the Constitution as had been postponed or not acted upon to a Committee of Eleven. Such reference carried with it both Arts. IX and X. The following week the Committee of Eleven made its report to the Convention, in which the present language of Art. II, § 2, cl. 2, dealing with the authority of the President to nominate is found, virtually word for word, as § 4 of Art. X. [173] The same Committee also reported a revised article concerning the Legislative Branch to the Convention. The changes are obvious. In the final version, the Senate is shorn of its power to appoint Ambassadors and Judges of the Supreme Court. The President is given, not the power to appoint public officers of the United States, but only the right to nominate them, and a provision is inserted by virtue of which Congress may require Senate confirmation of his nominees. It would seem a fair surmise that a compromise had been made. But no change was made in the concept of the term Officers of the United States, which since it had first appeared in Art. X had been taken by all concerned to embrace all appointed officials exercising responsibility under the public laws of the Nation. Appellee Commission and amici urge that because of what they conceive to be the extraordinary authority reposed in Congress to regulate elections, this case stands on a different footing than if Congress had exercised its legislative authority in another field. There is, of course, no doubt that Congress has express authority to regulate congressional elections, by virtue of the power conferred in Art. I, § 4. [174] This Court has also held that it has very broad authority to prevent corruption in national Presidential elections. Burroughs v. United States, 290 U. S. 534 (1934). But Congress has plenary authority in all areas in which it has substantive legislative jurisdiction, M`Culloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316 (1819), so long as the exercise of that authority does not offend some other constitutional restriction. We see no reason to believe that the authority of Congress over federal election practices is of such a wholly different nature from the other grants of authority to Congress that it may be employed in such a manner as to offend well-established constitutional restrictions stemming from the separation of powers. The position that because Congress has been given explicit and plenary authority to regulate a field of activity, it must therefore have the power to appoint those who are to administer the regulatory statute is both novel and contrary to the language of the Appointments Clause. Unless their selection is elsewhere provided for, all officers of the United States are to be appointed in accordance with the Clause. Principal officers are selected by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate. Inferior officers Congress may allow to be appointed by the President alone, by the heads of departments, or by the Judiciary. No class or type of officer is excluded because of its special functions. The President appoints judicial as well as executive officers. Neither has it been disputedand apparently it is not now disputedthat the Clause controls the appointment of the members of a typical administrative agency even though its functions, as this Court recognized in Humphrey's Executor v. United States, 295 U. S. 602, 624 (1935), may be predominantly quasi-judicial and quasi-legislative rather than executive. The Court in that case carefully emphasized that although the members of such agencies were to be independent of the Executive in their day-to-day operations, the Executive was not excluded from selecting them. Id., at 625-626. Appellees argue that the legislative authority conferred upon the Congress in Art. I, § 4, to regulate the Times, places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives is augmented by the provision in § 5 that Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members. Section 5 confers, however, not a general legislative power upon the Congress, but rather a power judicial in character upon each House of the Congress. Barry v. United States ex rel. Cunningham, 279 U. S. 597, 613 (1929). The power of each House to judge whether one claiming election as Senator or Representative has met the requisite qualifications, Powell v. McCormack, 395 U. S. 486 (1969), cannot reasonably be translated into a power granted to the Congress itself to impose substantive qualifications on the right to so hold such office. Whatever power Congress may have to legislate, such qualifications must derive from § 4, rather than § 5, of Art. I. Appellees also rely on the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution insofar as the authority of the Commission to regulate practices in connection with the Presidential election is concerned. This Amendment provides that certificates of the votes of the electors be sealed [and] directed to the President of the Senate, and that the President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted. The method by which Congress resolved the celebrated disputed Hayes-Tilden election of 1876, reflected in 19 Stat. 227, supports the conclusion that Congress viewed this Amendment as conferring upon its two Houses the same sort of power judicial in character, Barry v. United States ex rel. Cunningham, supra, at 613, as was conferred upon each House by Art. I, § 5, with respect to elections of its own members. We are also told by appellees and amici that Congress had good reason for not vesting in a Commission composed wholly of Presidential appointees the authority to administer the Act, since the administration of the Act would undoubtedly have a bearing on any incumbent President's campaign for re-election. While one cannot dispute the basis for this sentiment as a practical matter, it would seem that those who sought to challenge incumbent Congressmen might have equally good reason to fear a Commission which was unduly responsive to members of Congress whom they were seeking to unseat. But such fears, however rational, do not by themselves warrant a distortion of the Framers' work. Appellee Commission and amici finally contend, and the majority of the Court of Appeals agreed with them, that whatever shortcomings the provisions for the appointment of members of the Commission might have under Art. II, Congress had ample authority under the Necessary and Proper Clause of Art. I to effectuate this result. We do not agree. The proper inquiry when considering the Necessary and Proper Clause is not the authority of Congress to create an office or a commission, which is broad indeed, but rather its authority to provide that its own officers may make appointments to such office or commission. So framed, the claim that Congress may provide for this manner of appointment under the Necessary and Proper Clause of Art. I stands on no better footing than the claim that it may provide for such manner of appointment because of its substantive authority to regulate federal elections. Congress could not, merely because it concluded that such a measure was necessary and proper to the discharge of its substantive legislative authority, pass a bill of attainder or ex post facto law contrary to the prohibitions contained in § 9 of Art. I. No more may it vest in itself, or in its officers, the authority to appoint officers of the United States when the Appointments Clause by clear implication prohibits it from doing so. The trilogy of cases from this Court dealing with the constitutional authority of Congress to circumscribe the President's power to remove officers of the United States is entirely consistent with this conclusion. In Myers v. United States, 272 U. S. 52 (1926), the Court held that Congress could not by statute divest the President of the power to remove an officer in the Executive Branch whom he was initially authorized to appoint. In explaining its reasoning in that case, the Court said: The vesting of the executive power in the President was essentially a grant of the power to execute the laws. But the President alone and unaided could not execute the laws. He must execute them by the assistance of subordinates. . . . As he is charged specifically to take care that they be faithfully executed, the reasonable implication, even in the absence of express words, was that as part of his executive power he should select those who were to act for him under his direction in the execution of the laws. ..... Our conclusion on the merits, sustained by the arguments before stated, is that Article II grants to the President the executive power of the Government, i. e., the general administrative control of those executing the laws, including the power of appointment and removal of executive officersa conclusion confirmed by his obligation to take care that the laws be faithfully executed . . . . Id., at 117, 163-164. In the later case of Humphrey's Executor, where it was held that Congress could circumscribe the President's power to remove members of independent regulatory agencies, the Court was careful to note that it was dealing with an agency intended to be independent of executive authority  except in its selection.  295 U. S. at 625 (emphasis in original). Wiener v. United States, 357 U. S. 349 (1958), which applied the holding in Humphrey's Executor to a member of the War Claims Commission, did not question in any respect that members of independent agencies are not independent of the Executive with respect to their appointments. This conclusion is buttressed by the fact that Mr. Justice Sutherland, the author of the Court's opinion in Humphrey's Executor, likewise wrote the opinion for the Court in Springer v. Philippine Islands, 277 U. S. 189 (1928), in which it was said: Not having the power of appointment, unless expressly granted or incidental to its powers, the legislature cannot engraft executive duties upon a legislative office, since that would be to usurp the power of appointment by indirection; though the case might be different if the additional duties were devolved upon an appointee of the executive. Id., at 202.
Thus, on the assumption that all of the powers granted in the statute may be exercised by an agency whose members have been appointed in accordance with the Appointments Clause, [175] the ultimate question is which, if any, of those powers may be exercised by the present voting Commissioners, none of whom was appointed as provided by that Clause. Our previous description of the statutory provisions, see supra, at 109-113, disclosed that the Commission's powers fall generally into three categories: functions relating to the flow of necessary information receipt, dissemination, and investigation; functions with respect to the Commission's task of fleshing out the statuterulemaking and advisory opinions; and functions necessary to ensure compliance with the statute and rulesinformal procedures, administrative determinations and hearings, and civil suits. Insofar as the powers confided in the Commission are essentially of an investigative and informative nature, falling in the same general category as those powers which Congress might delegate to one of its own committees, there can be no question that the Commission as presently constituted may exercise them. Kilbourn v. Thompson, 103 U. S. 168 (1881); McGrain v. Daugherty, 273 U. S. 135 (1927); Eastland v. United States Servicemen's Fund, 421 U. S. 491 (1975). As this Court stated in McGrain, supra, at 175: A legislative body cannot legislate wisely or effectively in the absence of information respecting the conditions which the legislation is intended to affect or change; and where the legislative body does not itself possess the requisite informationwhich not infrequently is truerecourse must be had to others who do possess it. Experience has taught that mere requests for such information often are unavailing, and also that information which is volunteered is not always accurate or complete; so some means of compulsion are essential to obtain what is needed. All this was true before and when the Constitution was framed and adopted. In that period the power of inquirywith enforcing processwas regarded and employed as a necessary and appropriate attribute of the power to legislateindeed, was treated as inhering in it. But when we go beyond this type of authority to the more substantial powers exercised by the Commission, we reach a different result. The Commission's enforcement power, exemplified by its discretionary power to seek judicial relief, is authority that cannot possibly be regarded as merely in aid of the legislative function of Congress. A lawsuit is the ultimate remedy for a breach of the law, and it is to the President, and not to the Congress, that the Constitution entrusts the responsibility to take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed. Art. II, § 3. Congress may undoubtedly under the Necessary and Proper Clause create offices in the generic sense and provide such method of appointment to those offices as it chooses. But Congress' power under that Clause is inevitably bounded by the express language of Art. II, § 2, cl. 2, and unless the method it provides comports with the latter, the holders of those offices will not be Officers of the United States. They may, therefore, properly perform duties only in aid of those functions that Congress may carry out by itself, or in an area sufficiently removed from the administration and enforcement of the public law as to permit their being performed by persons not Officers of the United States. This Court observed more than a century ago with respect to litigation conducted in the courts of the United States: Whether tested, therefore, by the requirements of the Judiciary Act, or by the usage of the government, or by the decisions of this court, it is clear that all such suits, so far as the interests of the United States are concerned, are subject to the direction, and within the control of, the Attorney-General. Confiscation Cases, 7 Wall. 454, 458-459 (1869). The Court echoed similar sentiments 59 years later in Springer v. Philippine Islands, 277 U. S., at 202, saying: Legislative power, as distinguished from executive power, is the authority to make laws, but not to enforce them or appoint the agents charged with the duty of such enforcement. The latter are executive functions. It is unnecessary to enlarge further upon the general subject, since it has so recently received the full consideration of this Court. Myers v. United States, 272 U. S. 52. Not having the power of appointment, unless expressly granted or incidental to its powers, the legislature cannot engraft executive duties upon a legislative office, since that would be to usurp the power of appointment by indirection; though the case might be different if the additional duties were devolved upon an appointee of the executive. We hold that these provisions of the Act, vesting in the Commission primary responsibility for conducting civil litigation in the courts of the United States for vindicating public rights, violate Art. II, § 2, cl. 2, of the Constitution. Such functions may be discharged only by persons who are Officers of the United States within the language of that section. All aspects of the Act are brought within the Commission's broad administrative powers: rulemaking, advisory opinions, and determinations of eligibility for funds and even for federal elective office itself. These functions, exercised free from day-to-day supervision of either Congress [176] or the Executive Branch, are more legislative and judicial in nature than are the Commission's enforcement powers, and are of kinds usually performed by independent regulatory agencies or by some department in the Executive Branch under the direction of an Act of Congress. Congress viewed these broad powers as essential to effective and impartial administration of the entire substantive framework of the Act. Yet each of these functions also represents the performance of a significant governmental duty exercised pursuant to a public law. While the President may not insist that such functions be delegated to an appointee of his removable at will, Humphrey's Executor v. United States, 295 U. S. 602 (1935), none of them operates merely in aid of congressional authority to legislate or is sufficiently removed from the administration and enforcement of public law to allow it to be performed by the present Commission. These administrative functions may therefore be exercised only by persons who are Officers of the United States. [177] It is also our view that the Commission's inability to exercise certain powers because of the method by which its members have been selected should not affect the validity of the Commission's administrative actions and determinations to this date, including its administration of those provisions, upheld today, authorizing the public financing of federal elections. The past acts of the Commission are therefore accorded de facto validity, just as we have recognized should be the case with respect to legislative acts performed by legislators held to have been elected in accordance with an unconstitutional apportionment plan. Connor v. Williams, 404 U. S. 549, 550-551 (1972). See Ryan v. Tinsley, 316 F. 2d 430, 431-432 (CA10 1963); Schaefer v. Thomson, 251 F. Supp. 450, 453 (Wyo. 1965), aff'd sub nom. Harrison v. Schaeffer, 383 U. S. 269 (1966). Cf. City of Richmond v. United States, 422 U. S. 358, 379 (1975) (BRENNAN, J., dissenting). We also draw on the Court's practice in the apportionment and voting rights cases and stay, for a period not to exceed 30 days, the Court's judgment insofar as it affects the authority of the Commission to exercise the duties and powers granted it under the Act. This limited stay will afford Congress an opportunity to reconstitute the Commission by law or to adopt other valid enforcement mechanisms without interrupting enforcement of the provisions the Court sustains, allowing the present Commission in the interim to function de facto in accordance with the substantive provisions of the Act. Cf. Georgia v. United States, 411 U. S. 526, 541 (1973); Fortson v. Morris, 385 U. S. 231, 235 (1966); Maryland Comm. v. Tawes, 377 U. S. 656, 675-676 (1964).