By Jody Godoy
(Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump’s nominee to the Federal Trade Commission said on Tuesday he believes the White House should control government agencies, adding to calls from the FTC’s other Republican commissioners to end the agency’s independence.
Trump has sought through a series of actions to overturn a 90-year old U.S. Supreme Court precedent that keeps leadership at the FTC and other bipartisan agencies from being fired over political disagreements.
Mark Meador, who if confirmed would be the third Republican on the 5-member commission, said at his confirmation hearing on Tuesday that he agrees with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, who wrote in 2001 that presidential control of federal agencies increases accountability to voters.
“I will work to serve the American people and will do so by advancing the agenda of the president they elected,” Meador said at the hearing.
Meador declined to say whether he believes the ruling should be overturned, citing active FTC litigation.
The two other Republicans on the FTC have backed Trump’s push to expand his control over agencies that Congress meant to insulate from changing political winds.
FTC Commissioner Melissa Holyoak said at a conference in Washington, D.C., on Friday that she agrees with Trump officials including FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson, a fellow Republican, that the White House should have control.
“I don’t think it will impact our work too much. I say that because we do so much bipartisan work,” she said at the event organized by George Mason University.
No more than three commissioners can come from the same political party. Under federal law, they can only be removed for reasons such as corruption or neglect of duty.
Holyoak was asked how the agency’s work would change if Trump could end that bipartisan structure.
“We are entering into a new world so we will see how that goes. Nothing might change at all,” she said.
Speaking at a separate event in Washington on Monday, Ferguson, who was appointed to the commission last year by then-President Joe Biden, said bipartisanship can help sharpen the majority’s thinking.
“But at the end of the day, the FTC serves the American people and the American people elected Donald Trump,” he said at the event organized by conservative news outlet the Washington Reporter.
(Reporting by Jody Godoy in New York; Editing by Howard Goller)
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