110 Iowa L. Rev. Online 101 (2024)
Abstract
In regulatory commissions across the government, chairs are not the first among equals, but the principal policymakers for their agencies. Although associate commissioners’ votes are required to make law, chairs are in the minority so rarely that the occurrence makes national news. Further, the President’s selection of commission chairs means that associate commissioners are limited in their abilities to ensure chairs’ policies reflect majorities’ values.
Congress did not intend this dynamic when it created multimember agencies and the statutes bestowing upon commission chairs the authority to manage commissions’ day-to-day operations were intended only to enhance administrative efficiencies. It was these changes, however, combined with the rise of rulemakings as the primary mode of agency policymaking, that inadvertently led to the strong-chair model. This piece examines these decisions to make clear that the strong-chair model is not the way it always has been nor the way it need be in the future.