As followers of this blog recognize, Obamacare has more constitutional defects than just the individual mandate or even the coercive use of Medicaid funds.  One issue that is getting increasing attention (see the Weekly Standard, National Review, and George Will) is this weird new entity called the Independent Payment Advisory Board.

IPAB, which Sarah Palin famously labeled a “death panel,” will exercise virtually unchecked power to set Medicare reimbursement rates—without political or legal oversight by any branch of government.  It’s reminiscent of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, the part of the Sarbanes-Oxley financial regulation law that the Supreme Court found partially unconstitutional last year.  Except it has the power of life and death and is insulated even from repeal!

That is, IPAB creates “recommendations” for cutting Medicare spending, which then acquire the force of law.  Congress is specifically barred from reversing or modifying these “recommendations”; the only thing it can do is add further cuts.  It can also abolish IPAB, but only by passing a curious “resolution” that must be introduced between Jan. 3 and Feb. 1. 2017, and must be passed by 3/5 of all members of both houses by Aug. 15 of that same year.  Otherwise, Congress loses even its power to add further Medicare cuts and IPAB becomes a permanent fixture of of our health care world.

Suffice it to say, Congress cannot delegate its legislative authority to any such independent, everlasting institution.  One Congress can’t even bind its successors!

Pacific Legal Foundation principal attorney and Cato adjunct scholar Timothy Sandefur unearthed this great nugget by someone defending Obamacare:

Amazingly, Timothy Jost, one of Obamacare’s most vocal advocates, has proudly proclaimed that IPAB will act like:

A board of “Platonic Guardians” to govern the health care system or some aspects of it. The cost of health care is spinning dangerously out of control…. [O]ur traditional political institutions—Congress and the executive administrative agencies—are too driven by special interest politics and too limited in their expertise and vision to control costs. Enter the Platonic guardians…an impartial, independent board of experts who could make evidence-based policy determinations based purely on the basis of effectiveness and perhaps efficiency.

Think about that for a second. Plato’s “Guardians” (also known as philosopher kings) were a group of “godlike” officials (that’s Plato’s word) who would wield undemocratic power to form the perfect utopian state without oversight. According to The Republic, the Guardians would, among their other things, enforce:

by law…such an art of medicine…[which] will care for the bodies and souls of such of your citizens as are truly wellborn, but those who are not, such as are defective in body, they will suffer to die, and those who are evil-natured and incurable in soul they will themselves put to death. This certainly…has been shown to be the best thing for the sufferers themselves and for the state.

America’s constitutional democracy was created in direct contradiction to such authoritarian ideas.

Luckily, our friends at the Goldwater Institute have a lawsuit pending against IPAB, Coons v. Geithner (here’s the case page).  You’ll be hearing a lot more about this case regardless of the final result of the individual mandate lawsuits.  Here’s PLF’s amicus brief on the important “non-delegation doctrine” issue at its heart.

Obamacare’s Platonic Guardians is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

This morning at the Supreme Court, the federal government argued for the continued existence of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB, pronounced peek-a-boo) — and by extension the nefarious financial regulatory scheme known as Sarbanes-Oxley.  Cato filed a brief supporting a free market advocacy group and an accounting firm, who sued PCAOB for violating both the Appointments Clause and general constitutional separation-of-powers principles.

Passed with scant deliberation in the wake of the Enron and WorldCom scandals, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 established PCAOB to oversee the accounting practices of the nation’s public companies.  As my piece with Cato legal associate Travis Cushman details today, PCAOB enjoys the rare authority to make its own laws, collect taxes, inspect records, prosecute infractions, make judgments, and impose sanctions.

Traditionally, independent agencies that serve such executive functions must be accountable to the president.  PCAOB members, however, may only be removed “for cause” by members of the Securities and Exchange Commission, who in turn may only be removed “for cause” by the president.  I previously blogged about the case, Free Enterprise Fund v. PCAOB, here, here, and here.

As far as how the argument went, I think the forces of limited constitutional government have eked out a 5-4 victory.  Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, and Sotomayor were extremely hostile to the challengers’ argument, while the Chief Justice and Justices Scalia and Alito were supportive.  (Scalia at one point joked that he had no less power than the president — meaning not very much — to influence PCAOB.)  Justice Stevens only spoke up once but seemed to show a leaning towards the government position.  Justice Thomas, while remaining silent, can be expected to support the view of D.C. Circuit Judge Brett Kavanaugh — whose blistering yet scholarly dissent likely prompted the Court to take up the case.

And so the ruling rests, as often happens with the most interesting cases, on the shoulders of Justice Kennedy.  I remain cautiously optimistic that Kennedy will decide to uphold constitutional checks and balances and strike down what has become an unholy new branch of government.

Two curious notes from the argument: 1. Petitioners’ counsel Michael Carvin referenced Cato’s brief in discussing PCAOB’s overreach internationally — seeking to regulate even foreign accounting standards – without oversight from the State Department or the SEC, let alone the president; 2. PCAOB brought its own lawyer to argue alongside the solicitor general, begging the question: if PCAOB is subservient to the SEC and/or the president, why does it need its own counsel to represent its own views?

Big Out-of-Control Government Has Had Better Days at the Supreme Court is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Passed with scant deliberation amid a stock market panic, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 vastly expanded the federal government’s role in regulating corporate governance and the accounting industry. As part of that effort, Congress created a new agency to “audit the auditors.” Known as the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, the agency has broad rulemaking and enforcement powers to set accounting standards, investigate accounting firms, punish criminal violations, and make whatever rules “may be necessary or appropriate in the public interest or for the protection of investors.”

Remarkably, the PCAOB (pronounced “peek-a-boo”) also has the power to fund its own budget by levying taxes on publicly traded companies. Despite giving the PCAOB all this power, however, Congress insulated it entirely from presidential oversight. Unlike with an ordinary “independent agency,” the president has no power whatsoever to appoint or remove PCAOB officials. Those officials may be removed only “for cause” by the SEC, not the president; and SEC officials may themselves be removed only for cause.

The Free Enterprise Fund challenged the constitutionality of the PCAOB and appealed to the Supreme Court. Cato’s supporting brief focuses on the PCAOB’s practical policy consequences, illustrating how the PCAOB’s unconstitutional structure has created incentives for out-of-control spending, agency aggrandizement, and lack of coordination between regulators. Our brief also highlights the PCAOB’s efforts to impose American accounting standards abroad, which has caused confusion and invited retaliation from foreign regulators.

I previously blogged about this case here and here.

Sarbanes-Oxley’s Harms Are Magnified by the PCAOB’s Unconstitutional Structure is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Today the Supreme Court agreed to review a case brought by our friends at the Competitive Enterprise Institute that challenges the constitutionality of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB, pronounced “peek-a-boo”).  The constitutional problem with the PCAOB — there are many policy problems — is that its officers are appointed in an unconstitutional manner. 

Under the Appointments Clause of Article II, section 2, the president has the exclusive power to appoint and remove government officials.  The members of the PCAOB – which enforces the massive regulatory scheme Sarbanes-Oxley imposes on public companies – are appointed by the SEC, however, which then has limited supervisory/removal power.  While this structural defect may seem like a minor technicality, what it means is that the awesome power to set accounting standards — not least Sarbox section 404, which has cost the economy over a trillion dollars — impose taxes, and levy criminal and civil penalties is vested in a bunch of unaccountable bureaucrats.  Entities with similar authority, even those having a modicum of political independence, such as the IRS Commissioner and Federal Reserve governors, are all vetted by the president and the Senate.

The court below (the D.C. Circuit), however, held that PCAOB members are inferior officers and, as such, Congress “may limit and restrict the power of removal as it deems best for the public interest.”  But this gets the Constitution backwards; Congress isn’t allowed to insulate important decisionmakers from political accountability.  As CEI’s press release says:

If the President can pick and remove the PCAOB members, as the Appointments Clause requires, he will be on the hook for their policy failures, and thus have an interest in making them develop sound policies that protect investors and don’t stifle economic growth.  He won’t be able to blame the red tape on an unaccountable agency whose officials he doesn’t select or control.

The Court will hear the case, Free Enterprise Fund v. PCAOB — which I previously blogged about here – in late fall.

Sarbanes-Oxley under Attack… from the Supreme Court! is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog