Constitutional Opinion No. 2026-0873
Case Information
- Source
- Office of the Governor of Florida / Office of the Attorney General of Florida (official government social media)
- Author
- Gov. Ron DeSantis, quoting Attorney General James Uthmeier
- Publication Date
- 2025-02-24
- Content Type
- Media / Government-Source Commentary
- Opinion Issued
- 2026-07-22
- AFCS Version
- 1.0
Holding
The highest-scoring post of the governor's commentary series and the first to cross into the top band. It defends the President's Article II removal power — an amicus effort by Florida and 19 states arguing the vesting clause places executive power in the elected President, who may remove executive-branch officials, and that insulated unaccountable bureaucracy is foreign to the Founders' design. It advances the framework's keystone article at its center: fidelity to the constitutional text and the Founders' structural design (XVII), the elected executive's accountability for and control of the administrative state (XII), and democratic accountability of unelected power (II). It is the most rigorously grounded post of the set — citing and displaying two actual filed amicus briefs and quoting the vesting clause accurately. The Standard prices one honest consideration in Tier 2/JI, not in alignment: the removal-power scope over independent agencies is contested law (Humphrey's Executor being challenged in these very cases), and the post frames its originalist reading as settled Founders' design, omitting the contrary precedent — legitimate advocacy stated one-sidedly. Scored as Government-Source Commentary (70/30) with a Journalistic Integrity score of 70. America First (81).
It is the judgment of this Court that Opinion No. 2026-0873 is hereby entered into the record, in accordance with the America First Constitutional Standard. The score stands. The reasoning is published. The record is public.