Opinion ID: 112139
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Appointments Clause of Article II reads as follows:

Text: [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. U. S. Const., Art. II, § 2, cl. 2. The parties do not dispute that [t]he Constitution for purposes of appointment . . . divides all its officers into two classes. United States v. Germaine, 99 U. S. 508, 509 (1879). As we stated in Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1, 132 (1976): 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. The initial question is, accordingly, whether appellant is an inferior or a principal officer. [12] If she is the latter, as the Court of Appeals concluded, then the Act is in violation of the Appointments Clause. The line between inferior and principal officers is one that is far from clear, and the Framers provided little guidance into where it should be drawn. See, e. g., 2 J. Story, Commentaries on the Constitution § 1536, pp. 397-398 (3d ed. 1858) (In the practical course of the government there does not seem to have been any exact line drawn, who are and who are not to be deemed inferior officers, in the sense of the constitution, whose appointment does not necessarily require the concurrence of the senate). We need not attempt here to decide exactly where the line falls between the two types of officers, because in our view appellant clearly falls on the inferior officer side of that line. Several factors lead to this conclusion. First, appellant is subject to removal by a higher Executive Branch official. Although appellant may not be subordinate to the Attorney General (and the President) insofar as she possesses a degree of independent discretion to exercise the powers delegated to her under the Act, the fact that she can be removed by the Attorney General indicates that she is to some degree inferior in rank and authority. Second, appellant is empowered by the Act to perform only certain, limited duties. An independent counsel's role is restricted primarily to investigation and, if appropriate, prosecution for certain federal crimes. Admittedly, the Act delegates to appellant full power and independent authority to exercise all investigative and prosecutorial functions and powers of the Department of Justice, § 594(a), but this grant of authority does not include any authority to formulate policy for the Government or the Executive Branch, nor does it give appellant any administrative duties outside of those necessary to operate her office. The Act specifically provides that in policy matters appellant is to comply to the extent possible with the policies of the Department. § 594(f). Third, appellant's office is limited in jurisdiction. Not only is the Act itself restricted in applicability to certain federal officials suspected of certain serious federal crimes, but an independent counsel can only act within the scope of the jurisdiction that has been granted by the Special Division pursuant to a request by the Attorney General. Finally, appellant's office is limited in tenure. There is concededly no time limit on the appointment of a particular counsel. Nonetheless, the office of independent counsel is temporary in the sense that an independent counsel is appointed essentially to accomplish a single task, and when that task is over the office is terminated, either by the counsel herself or by action of the Special Division. Unlike other prosecutors, appellant has no ongoing responsibilities that extend beyond the accomplishment of the mission that she was appointed for and authorized by the Special Division to undertake. In our view, these factors relating to the ideas of tenure, duration . . . and duties of the independent counsel, Germaine, supra, at 511, are sufficient to establish that appellant is an inferior officer in the constitutional sense. This conclusion is consistent with our few previous decisions that considered the question whether a particular Government official is a principal or an inferior officer. In United States v. Eaton, 169 U. S. 331 (1898), for example, we approved Department of State regulations that allowed executive officials to appoint a vice-consul during the temporary absence of the consul, terming the vice-consul a subordinate officer notwithstanding the Appointment Clause's specific reference to Consuls as principal officers. As we stated: Because the subordinate officer is charged with the performance of the duty of the superior for a limited time and under special and temporary conditions he is not thereby transformed into the superior and permanent official. Id., at 343. In Ex parte Siebold, 100 U. S. 371 (1880), the Court found that federal supervisor[s] of elections, who were charged with various duties involving oversight of local congressional elections, see id., at 379-380, were inferior officers for purposes of the Clause. In Go-Bart Importing Co. v. United States, 282 U. S. 344, 352-353 (1931), we held that United States commissioners are inferior officers. Id., at 352. These commissioners had various judicial and prosecutorial powers, including the power to arrest and imprison for trial, to issue warrants, and to institute prosecutions under laws relating to the elective franchise and civil rights. Id., at 353, n. 2. All of this is consistent with our reference in United States v. Nixon, 418 U. S. 683, 694, 696 (1974), to the office of Watergate Special Prosecutor  whose authority was similar to that of appellant, see id., at 694, n. 8  as a subordinate officer. This does not, however, end our inquiry under the Appointments Clause. Appellees argue that even if appellant is an inferior officer, the Clause does not empower Congress to place the power to appoint such an officer outside the Executive Branch. They contend that the Clause does not contemplate congressional authorization of interbranch appointments, in which an officer of one branch is appointed by officers of another branch. The relevant language of the Appointments Clause is worth repeating. It reads: . . . 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. On its face, the language of this excepting clause admits of no limitation on interbranch appointments. Indeed, the inclusion of as they think proper seems clearly to give Congress significant discretion to determine whether it is proper to vest the appointment of, for example, executive officials in the courts of Law. We recognized as much in one of our few decisions in this area, Ex parte Siebold, supra , where we stated: It is no doubt usual and proper to vest the appointment of inferior officers in that department of the government, executive or judicial, or in that particular executive department to which the duties of such officers appertain. But there is no absolute requirement to this effect in the Constitution; and, if there were, it would be difficult in many cases to determine to which department an office properly belonged. . . . But as the Constitution stands, the selection of the appointing power, as between the functionaries named, is a matter resting in the discretion of Congress. And, looking at the subject in a practical light, it is perhaps better that it should rest there, than that the country should be harassed by the endless controversies to which a more specific direction on this subject might have given rise. Id., at 397-398. Our only decision to suggest otherwise, Ex parte Hennen, 13 Pet. 230 (1839), from which the first sentence in the above quotation from Siebold was derived, was discussed in Siebold and distinguished as not intended to define the constitutional power of Congress in this regard, but rather to express the law or rule by which it should be governed. 100 U. S., at 398. Outside of these two cases, there is very little, if any, express discussion of the propriety of interbranch appointments in our decisions, and we see no reason now to depart from the holding of Siebold that such appointments are not proscribed by the excepting clause. We also note that the history of the Clause provides no support for appellees' position. Throughout most of the process of drafting the Constitution, the Convention concentrated on the problem of who should have the authority to appoint judges. At the suggestion of James Madison, the Convention adopted a proposal that the Senate should have this authority, 1 Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, pp. 232-233 (M. Farrand ed. 1966), and several attempts to transfer the appointment power to the President were rejected. See 2 id., at 42-44, 80-83. The August 6, 1787, draft of the Constitution reported by the Committee of Detail retained Senate appointment of Supreme Court Judges, provided also for Senate appointment of ambassadors, and vested in the President the authority to appoint officers in all cases not otherwise provided for by this Constitution. Id., at 183, 185. This scheme was maintained until September 4, when the Committee of Eleven reported its suggestions to the Convention. This Committee suggested that the Constitution be amended to state that the President shall nominate and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate shall appoint ambassadors, and other public Ministers, Judges of the Supreme Court, and all other Officers of the [United States], whose appointments are not otherwise herein provided for. Id., at 498-499. After the addition of Consuls to the list, the Committee's proposal was adopted, id., at 539, and was subsequently reported to the Convention by the Committee of Style. See id., at 599. It was at this point, on September 15, that Gouverneur Morris moved to add the Excepting Clause to Art. II, § 2. Id., at 627. The one comment made on this motion was by Madison, who felt that the Clause did not go far enough in that it did not allow Congress to vest appointment powers in Superior Officers below Heads of Departments. The first vote on Morris' motion ended in a tie. It was then put forward a second time, with the urging that some such provision [was] too necessary, to be omitted. This time the proposal was adopted. Id., at 627-628. As this discussion shows, there was little or no debate on the question whether the Clause empowers Congress to provide for interbranch appointments, and there is nothing to suggest that the Framers intended to prevent Congress from having that power. We do not mean to say that Congress' power to provide for interbranch appointments of inferior officers is unlimited. In addition to separation-of-powers concerns, which would arise if such provisions for appointment had the potential to impair the constitutional functions assigned to one of the branches, Siebold itself suggested that Congress' decision to vest the appointment power in the courts would be improper if there was some incongruity between the functions normally performed by the courts and the performance of their duty to appoint. 100 U. S., at 398 ([T]he duty to appoint inferior officers, when required thereto by law, is a constitutional duty of the courts; and in the present case there is no such incongruity in the duty required as to excuse the courts from its performance, or to render their acts void). In this case, however, we do not think it impermissible for Congress to vest the power to appoint independent counsel in a specially created federal court. We thus disagree with the Court of Appeals' conclusion that there is an inherent incongruity about a court having the power to appoint prosecutorial officers. [13] We have recognized that courts may appoint private attorneys to act as prosecutor for judicial contempt judgments. See Young v. United States ex rel. Vuitton et Fils S. A., 481 U. S. 787 (1987). In Go-Bart Importing Co. v. United States, 282 U. S. 344 (1931), we approved court appointment of United States commissioners, who exercised certain limited prosecutorial powers. Id., at 353, n. 2. In Siebold, as well, we indicated that judicial appointment of federal marshals, who are executive officer[s], would not be inappropriate. Lower courts have also upheld interim judicial appointments of United States Attorneys, see United States v. Solomon, 216 F. Supp. 835 (SDNY 1963), and Congress itself has vested the power to make these interim appointments in the district courts, see 28 U. S. C. § 546(d) (1982 ed., Supp. V). [14] Congress, of course, was concerned when it created the office of independent counsel with the conflicts of interest that could arise in situations when the Executive Branch is called upon to investigate its own high-ranking officers. If it were to remove the appointing authority from the Executive Branch, the most logical place to put it was in the Judicial Branch. In the light of the Act's provision making the judges of the Special Division ineligible to participate in any matters relating to an independent counsel they have appointed, 28 U. S. C. § 49(f) (1982 ed., Supp. V), we do not think that appointment of the independent counsel by the court runs afoul of the constitutional limitation on incongruous interbranch appointments.