June 3, 2009
Stop Unconstitutional Stomping
Here's an idea about how to help businesses survive in this troubled economic
climate: Stop allowing an unaccountable regulatory board — unclad by even a fig
leaf of constitutionality — to ride roughshod over public companies.
In the wake of the Enron scam and other financial scandals several years ago,
Congress enacted a packet of onerous new regulations. This Sarbanes-Oxley
legislation created a regulatory board, the Public Company Accounting Oversight
Board, to issue arbitrary edicts, impose arbitrary penalties, etc.
One problem with this star chamber is that its officers are neither appointed
by the executive branch nor approved by Congress, as required by the
Constitution.
The Competitive Enterprise Institute and the Free Enterprise Fund want this
practice to end. CEI explains that if the president were obliged to appoint and
dismiss members of this board, as required by the Constitution's Appointments
Clause, “he will be on the hook for their policy failures, and thus have an
interest in making them develop sound policies. . . . He won't be able to blame
the red tape on an unaccountable agency. . . .”
But the two organizations are not merely publishing op-eds and issuing press
releases. They have filed suit, taking their case against the oversight board
to the courts. And now the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case.
At last, this oversight board gets some much-needed oversight.
This is Common Sense. I'm Paul Jacob.
Visit www.CitizensInCharge.org
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