Who Will be the Executor of Humphrey's Executor?
One puzzle created by today's emergency order is that nobody now has a reason to bring the merits of overruling Humphrey's Executor to the Court. Anyone litigating this issue received a clear signal of the outcome. Why would they bring a case to the Court? Thus, it's possible that Humphrey's Executor will formally remain the law but be ignored in practice. The Court should have granted certiorari and simply overruled Humphrey's Executor on the slow-poke docket. A side note. This order is the first Supreme Court endorsement of central bank independence as a constitutional principle. That is no small thing, as I will explain in another post.
One puzzle created by today's emergency order is that nobody now has a reason to bring the merits of overruling Humphrey's Executor to the Court. Anyone litigating this issue received a clear signal of the outcome. Why would they bring a case to the Court? Thus, it's possible that Humphrey's Executor will formally remain the law but be ignored in practice. The Court should have granted certiorari and simply overruled Humphrey's Executor on the slow-poke docket.
A side note. This order is the first Supreme Court endorsement of central bank independence as a constitutional principle. That is no small thing, as I will explain in another post.
