SCOTUS rules that the President can fire the head of the CFPB at will.

[Vosem]

Has it occurred to some of the people in this thread that judges may (indeed, ought to) reach decisions on the basis of something other than immediate partisan gain?

[Vosem]

Has it occurred to some of the people in this thread that judges may (indeed, ought to) reach decisions on the basis of something other than immediate partisan gain?

Does not happen anymore in the polarized era. To believe otherwise is idealistic and naive.

This seems like a very stupid question to decide on the basis of immediate partisan gain, since it is very obvious that the CFPB will eventually fall under the control of the opposite party; in American history very long stretches when the Presidency is under the control of a single party are unusual, and stretches longer than 24 years (1801-1825) are unheard of. Most members of the Supreme Court, statistically, will still be around for the next 2-3 changes in the partisan composition of the Presidency.

(By contrast, Congress can remain under the control of a single party for very long stretches of time. And the judiciary normally behaves in this way; if you think you are a natural majority, it may make sense for you to behave in certain ways. Though even then, people throughout American history have had a tendency not to see realignments coming. It is still the case that the calculus for the executive branch is fundamentally very different, because you cannot plan on controlling it for most of the time.)

[Vosem]

Has it occurred to some of the people in this thread that judges may (indeed, ought to) reach decisions on the basis of something other than immediate partisan gain?

Does not happen anymore in the polarized era. To believe otherwise is idealistic and naive.

This seems like a very stupid question to decide on the basis of immediate partisan gain, since it is very obvious that the CFPB will eventually fall under the control of the opposite party; in American history very long stretches when the Presidency is under the control of a single party are unusual, and stretches longer than 24 years (1801-1825) are unheard of. Most members of the Supreme Court, statistically, will still be around for the next 2-3 changes in the partisan composition of the Presidency.

(By contrast, Congress can remain under the control of a single party for very long stretches of time. And the judiciary normally behaves in this way; if you think you are a natural majority, it may make sense for you to behave in certain ways. Though even then, people throughout American history have had a tendency not to see realignments coming. It is still the case that the calculus for the executive branch is fundamentally very different, because you cannot plan on controlling it for most of the time.)

I'm not talking about the justices, who I agree are not pure partisans (only 3 out of 9 come even close to that and 1 of those 3 took the opposite side in this case).  I'm talking about the plaintiffs who clearly filed this case in the hope they would get more favorable treatment from a Trump appointee than from Richard Cordray, the Obama appointee who ran CFPB when this all began.  As it would happen, Cordray resigned anyway to run for governor in Ohio and was replaced by a Trump appointee who can now be dismissed by Biden on day 1. 

In my understanding the plaintiffs sued the CFPB as a tactic to avoid federal investigation, rather than out of alignment with any particular theory of executive power. Their argument was that the manner of the director's appointment was unconstitutional and inseverable from the rest of the act that created it; therefore the whole agency was unconstitutional and had no power to investigate them. The Court agreed with the executive power theory, but threw the rest of the case (which was what the plaintiffs cared about) away.

At the time when Seila Law was under investigation, Trump's appointee Kraninger had already succeeded Cordray as director; they couldn't expect better treatment from a Trump appointee since Trump-appointee treatment was what they were already getting!