I bring this up because, while it was over 30 years ago and the law was allowed to expire, it was a resoundingly lopsided decision. A lot of other separation of powers decisions and decisions dealing with the Vesting Clauses are usually interpreted very strictly, usually ways in which I disagree. I look at that compared to the Seila Law decision, where the Court ruled against an individual having that much power. However, it does seem like the major difference is that Morrison had more to do with investigatory and prosecutorial powers whereas Seila Law has more to do with the administrative state. I'm actually more surprised the Court didn't find issue with the law when it came to the Appointments Clause. Five of the Justices in the majority were also in the majority in INS v. Chadha, which ruled a legislative veto to be unconstitutional. The specific case was the one-house legislative veto, which I would agree violates bicameralism. (Personally, I think a carefully crafted two-house legislative veto over certain areas of the administrative state should be constitutional.) However, it was also ruled to violate the Presentment Clause. Once again, I disagree, but I'm talking about the decisions handed down by the Court.
Correct, on the basis of "the conflicts of interest that could arise in situations when the Executive Branch is called upon to investigate its own high-ranking officers" justifying the independent counsel procedures established by the law. As for why the majority didn't take further issue with it, the opinion quoted the Constitutional Convention's serious consideration to give the Senate the power to appoint executive branch officials as a check on the president, which would obviously dispute the argument that the Framers' original intent was to create such a powerful unitary executive as Scalia's dissent envisioned.
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