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Constitutional Law Keyed to Stone
Collins v. Yellen
Citation:
141 S. Ct. 1761 (2020)Facts
In response to the 2008 housing crisis, Congress enacted the Housing and Economic Recovery Act (HERA), creating the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) as an independent agency led by a single Director removable by the President only “for cause.” Shortly after its creation, the FHFA placed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into conservatorship and negotiated agreements with the Treasury Department, whereby Treasury provided capital in exchange for senior preferred stock and fixed-rate dividends. In 2012, the FHFA and Treasury amended these agreements (the “Third Amendment”) to replace the fixed-rate dividend with a variable formula requiring the companies to pay nearly all their net worth to Treasury. Shareholders sued, claiming this exceeded FHFA’s statutory authority as conservator and that the FHFA’s structure violated separation of powers because the Director was insulated from presidential removal. The case ultimately reached the Supreme Court after the Fifth Circuit held the FHFA’s structure unconstitutional but declined to set aside the Third Amendment.
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