What do the Cabinet and federal agencies do?

#What the Cabinet is

The Constitution never uses the word “Cabinet.” It says the president may require “the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments.” USAGov describes Cabinet members as advisors to the president, a group that includes the vice president, department heads and other high-ranking officials. As of November 2026, the White House’s Cabinet page lists 21 positions: the 15 department heads and 6 others, such as the director of the Office of Management and Budget and the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.

#The 15 executive departments

Federal law names 15 executive departments: State, Treasury, Defense, Justice, Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, Labor, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Transportation, Energy, Education, Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security. The attorney general heads the Justice Department. Departments exist because Congress creates them by statute. Homeland Security, the last name on the list, was established by a law enacted on November 25, 2002.

#What makes an agency independent

Title 5 of the U.S. Code defines an “independent establishment” as an establishment in the executive branch that is not an executive department, a military department or a government corporation, with a few listed exceptions. So the label does not put an agency in a fourth branch. Congress sets each agency’s design by statute. The Federal Reserve Board has seven members with 14-year terms, and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has five commissioners with 7-year terms, no more than three from one party.

#How heads are chosen and removed

Article II says the president nominates officers of the United States and appoints them with the Senate’s advice and consent. Congress can let the president alone, the courts or department heads appoint “inferior Officers.” The Senate reports confirming well over 500 Cabinet nominations in its history. On removal, the Supreme Court’s 1926 decision in Myers v. United States generally lets the president remove executive officers at will, and the FTC’s case shows where that rule has been tested.

#One agency over time: the FTC

Congress created the FTC in 1914. Its statute lets the president remove a commissioner for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” For decades, Humphrey’s Executor v. United States (1935) treated the FTC as an exception to the at-will removal rule. On June 29, 2026, the Supreme Court ruled 6–3 that the FTC’s removal limit is contrary to the separation of powers, and it overruled whatever remained of the 1935 decision. Three justices dissented.

The majority said it was not deciding every case. It set aside the Federal Reserve, to the extent it follows the tradition of the First and Second Banks of the United States, along with the judges of non-Article III courts. The same day, in a separate 5–4 ruling, the Court left in place a lower-court order that blocked the removal of a Federal Reserve governor while that lawsuit continued, saying the government had not shown it was likely to prevail.