Biden fires head of Social Security Administration, a Trump holdover who drew the ire of Democrats [View all]

[BumRushDaShow]

Last edited Fri Jul 9, 2021, 07:35 PM - Edit history (1)

Source: Washington Post

President Biden on Friday fired Social Security Commissioner Andrew Saul, a holdover from the Trump administration who had alienated crucial Democratic constituencies with policies designed to clamp down benefits and an uncompromising anti-union stance. Saul was fired after refusing a request to resign, White House officials said. His deputy, David Black, who was also appointed by former president Donald Trump, resigned Friday upon request. Biden named Kilolo Kijakazi, the current deputy commissioner for retirement and disability policy, to serve as acting commissioner until a permanent nominee is selected.

But Saul said in an interview Friday afternoon that he would not leave his post, challenging the legality of the White House move to oust him. As the head of an independent agency whose leadership does not normally change with a new administration, Saul’s six-year term was supposed to last until January 2025. The White House said a recent Supreme Court ruling gives the president power to replace him. Saul disputed that. “I consider myself the term-protected Commissioner of Social Security,” he said, adding that he plans to be back at work on Monday morning, signing in remotely from his New York home. He called his ouster a “Friday Night Massacre.”

“This was the first I or my deputy knew this was coming,” Saul said of the email he received from the White House Personnel Office Friday morning. “It was a bolt of lightning no one expected. And right now it’s left the agency in complete turmoil.” Saul’s firing came after a tumultuous six-month tenure in the Biden administration during which advocates for the elderly and the disabled and Democrats on Capitol Hill pressured the White House to dismiss him. He had clashed with labor unions that represent his 60,000 employees, who said he used union-busting tactics.

Angry advocates say he dawdled while millions of disabled Americans waited for him to turn over files to the Internal Revenue Service to release their stimulus checks — and accused him of an overzealous campaign to make disabled people reestablish their eligibility for benefits. “Since taking office, Commissioner Saul has undermined and politicized Social Security disability benefits, terminated the agency’s telework policy that was utilized by up to 25 percent of the agency’s workforce, not repaired SSA’s relationships with relevant Federal employee unions including in the context of COVID-19 workplace safety planning, reduced due process protections for benefits appeals hearings, and taken other actions that run contrary to the mission of the agency and the President’s policy agenda,” the White House said in a statement.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/andrew-saul-social-security-/2021/07/09/c18a34fa-df99-11eb-a501-0e69b5d012e5_story.html

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Didn't realize this one was still there.

ETA - here is some info on what happened here and the mechanism behind it (from a piece in The Hill) -

Social Security commissioners must be tied to the president

By Thomas Hungerford, opinion contributor — 01/20/21 06:00 PM EST
The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the view of The Hill

(snip)

This situation is the result of the Social Security Independence and Program Improvements Act of 1994. Before getting into needed changes regarding the terms of the top two positions at SSA, let me provide a bit of background. Before 1994, SSA was part of the Department of Health and Human Services and the commissioner was a political appointee who reported to the HHS secretary.

In the 20 years prior to the introduction of bills that would change that structure, Congress noted an increasing backlog of disability claims, frequent turnover of agency personnel — including 12 commissioners, six of whom served as acting commissioners — and increasing political intervention in the administration of Social Security. Both the House and Senate version of the bill separated SSA from HHS to establish an independent agency “in the executive branch of government.” That is, SSA would become independent of HHS but not of the executive branch. The House and Senate versions differed, among other things, on who would run the newly independent agency.

The House version would have created a three-member board appointed by the president subject to Senate confirmation who would serve staggered six-year terms. The board would appoint an executive director to run the agency and would serve a four-year term. The executive director would appoint a deputy director who would serve at their pleasure. The Senate version would have created the office of the commissioner with a commissioner appointed by the president subject to Senate confirmation to serve a four-year term coincident with the president’s term of office. A deputy commissioner would also be appointed by the president subject to Senate confirmation to serve a coincident four-year term.

After the conference to reconcile the differences between the House and Senate versions, the enacted legislation created an independent SSA as part of the executive branch and a commissioner and deputy commissioner appointed by the president subject to Senate confirmation to serve six-year terms. The commissioner does not serve at the pleasure of the president; he or she “may be removed from office only pursuant to a finding by the president of neglect of duty or malfeasance in office.” The act is silent on the midterm removal of the deputy commissioner; presumably they can be fired at-will by the president.

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/535001-social-security-commissioners-must-be-tied-to-the-president

So I expect all the ducks are in a row regarding malfeasance to do a "for cause" removal.