1. Bowsher v. Synar, (1986)
2. Facts: The Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act established maximum annual permissible deficits designed to reduce the federal deficit to zero by 1991. If needed to keep the deficit within the maximum, the Act required the OMB and the CBO to make recommendations to the Comptroller General as to the budget reductions necessary in each program. The Comptroller General office was created by the budget and accounting office, in an act that required nomination by the President, but removal [for cause] by a Congressional resolution, subject to presidential veto.
3. Procedural Posture: The act establishing the Comptroller General office was challenged as being a violation of the separation of powers because it gave Congress the power to remove an official having executive powers.
4. Issue: Whether the act establishin the Comptroller General’s office is unconstitutional as a violation of separation of powers.
5. Holding: Yes.
6. Majority Reasoning: Congress cannot reserve for itself the power of removal of an officer charged with the execution of laws except by impeachment. To permit the execution of the laws to be vested in an officer answerable only to Congress would, in practical terms, reserve in Congress control over the execution of the laws. To permit an officer controlled by congress to execute the laws would be, in essence, to permit a congressional veto of the kind struck down in Chadha. The Comptroller is an executive officer because of his duties. The scope of the reasons allowable for his removal are broader than that allowed for impeachment, which is only for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” Even though it may be a small chance of removal in practice, the Comptroller is not sufficiently free from congressional influence. Thus, the fallback provisions of the Act, wherein Congress itself makes the ultimate budget decisions by joint resolution, must be activated.
7. Dissent Reasoning: [White] The removal by Congress of the Comptroller is of such minimal practical significance that it presents no threat to the scheme of separation of powers. It requires 2/3 approval by both houses to override a presidential veto of the Comptroller’s removal.
