Some thoughts on what’s currently happening at ACUS:

Severino was already on the ACUS Council as of July 2020, serving a three-year term. Trump reappointed him less than a year into his term on January 16, 2021, presumably to restart the three-year clock. https://www.acus.gov/newsroom/news/president-trump-appoints-three-new-members-council-administrative-conference-united

According to Severino's complaint, President Biden fired him today, along with three other folks, all of which were federal employees when they were first appointed. The Administrative Conference Act, ACUS’s governing statute, says

that “not more than one-half” of Councilmembers shall be Federal employees. It also has says “the service of any member ends when a change in his employment status would make him ineligible for Council membership under the conditions of his original appointment.” 5 USC 595(b).

One reading of this statute is that if you’re no longer a Federal employee, you don’t get to stay on the Council. I’ve had debates with folks about whether this is the correct or best reading.

My guess is that this is the reading the Biden folks are going with, and that folks

cannot be “reappointed” in the middle of their terms, and while still Federal employees.

So, this could be considered just a statutory interpretation case – if the courts read the Act this way. But the Act could also be read that if you are a private-sector member of the Council

Council and get a government job, and if that puts the number of Federal employees on the Council above ½, then you can no longer serve. If they read the Act that way, perhaps Humphrey’s Executor gets involved.

The Act does not have removal protection language, but neither does the Securities Exchange Act, the Federal Deposit Insurance Act, or others. The three-year term provision may imply removal protections, in which case we get into Humphrey’s Executor-land.

I don't know how this shakes out. I don't know if I have the facts 100% right, since the details of presidential appointments to these positions aren't public. I also don't know the law around re-appointing someone in the middle of their term.

But I do think that this has a non-zero chance of allowing the courts to question Humphrey's, and that could be a big deal.

/end/

(Sorry about the format!)

One final thing: Note that the case's caption is Severino v Biden, not Severino v US. Note that Severino's lawyer was Trump's first nominee to be ACUS Chair. And note how quickly news articles started coming out about this suit.

This case is as much about optics as law.