200 Politics and the administration
climate of the nation, could be insulated from politics was inevitably still-
born. Presidents have made strenuous attempts to exercise a much closer
control over the commissions than Congress ever intended. As we have seen,
the turnover of membership is such that the president is able to make many
more appointments during his term than was envisaged. The president’s
power to re-appoint members might influence their behaviour and other in-
fluences can be brought to bear. President Eisenhower’s assistant, Sherman
Adams, when asked whether he had found it necessary to ask commissioners
to hand in their resignations, replied, ‘If you insist on the question I should
have to answer it in the affirmative.’ Professor Bernard Schwartz has pro-
vided a great deal of evidence of the informal links between the White House
and the commissions, and it can also be shown that members of Congress
have brought pressure to bear on the commissions in much the same way,
using the ultimate legislative power of Congress over the commissions as the
threat to gain compliance. One commentator on the working of the Federal
Communications Commission, Susan Oberlander, has described the way the
system operates:
There is almost always another arena in which to challenge an FCC
decision. Parties can find an audience on Congressional committees, or
industries can complain to friends on the White House staff or in the
media, they can challenge FCC interpretations in court, and if courts
rule against them, they can return to the legislature.Pressures from president and Congress, however they might conflict with
the theory behind the commission form of government, are perhaps to be
excused more than the pressures that come from those being regulated:
business and labour interests. A few cases of actual corruption have come
to light, but the problem is more one of the personal relationships between
those who make decisions on the commissions and those who can offer them
much higher rewards in industry when they leave their government posts.
There are examples, perfectly legal, of serving members of the commissions
openly offering their expertise to the highest bidder. Thus the commissions
are neither truly independent nor subject to the control and direction of the
president to the extent that is the case in the executive departments. They
disappoint those who would like to see them making their decisions free from
all pressures, and equally those who believe that a president should have
effective control of his administration’s economic policy.
Government corporations
It should already be clear that laissez-faire, if that is interpreted as complete
freedom from interference by government in economic affairs, is certainly
not characteristic of the United States. The American government under-
takes extensive regulation of many aspects of economic life, but there is yet