THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS MATTER PART 1

I HAD INTENDED TO BEGIN THIS WITH “You Jackass! It’s the Library of Congress—not of the Executive Branch.” Upon researching the matter, though, I found that indeed the President likely has authority to fire the Librarian of Congress and also the Register of Copyrights, who is the Librarian’s subordinate. See Reason: Free Minds and Free Markets. The Volokh Conspiracy: Mostly law professors/Sometimes contrarian/Often libertarian/Always independent. 

I note that Eugene Volokh is the Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus and Distinguished Research Professor at UCLA School of Law and the Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution. The latter is a think-tank that’s considered skewing conservative though a fair interpreter of the news.

Professor Volokh says up front “I will set aside the question of whether that was a good idea [firing the Librarian and Register], and focus on the legal question.”  

Copyrights—An Executive Matter. Volokh writes, “The answer appears to be that the Library of Congress is actually an Executive Branch department for legal purposes, though it also provides some services to Congress. Indeed, I think it has to be such a department in order to have the authority that it has over the implementation of copyright law (via the Register of Copyrights): As Buckley v. Valeo (1976) made clear, in a less famous part of its holding, Congress can’t appoint heads of agencies that exercise executive powers.”

“Indeed,” Volokh continues, “the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit held last year, ‘As we have recognized, the Librarian is a “Head of Department” within the Executive Branch.’ ”

But Note Also “Advice and Consent…” “Likewise,” Volokh cites, “Eltra Corp. v. Ringer (4th Cir. 1978) held that, ‘The Register [of Copyrights] is appointed by the Librarian of Congress, who in turn is appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate.”

Volokh offers other legalese dating from 1903 to as recently as 2023 and concludes, “So in any event, it appears that the removal of the Librarian of Congress is legal, and the President is entitled to appoint a replacement (with the advice and consent of the Senate).”

But Is It An Obscene Removal? Author George Saunders writes about “Shame on the White House,” a Guest Essay in The New York Times, May 13, 2025. Saunders recounts, “If the White House wants to fire the librarian of Congress, it can. But it was interesting to have recently had the experience of meeting this dynamic, dedicated person, and feeling so proud that she was our librarian of Congress, then reading the White House’s sloppy, juvenile rationale for her dismissal; it gave me a visceral feeling for just how diseased this administration really is.”

Image by Shoshana Schultz/The New York Times.

Saunders met Dr. Carla Hayden in receiving the Library of Congress’s Prize for American Fiction in 2023. “One of the things Dr. Hayden and I bonded over,” he says, “was the idea that knowledge is power, that in a democracy, the more we know, the better we are.” 

I concur in reading this; see “Trump Versus Knowledge,” here at SimanaitisSays.

Tomorrow in Part 2, Saunders and others examine the Jackass Nonsense in White House reasoning. Why don’t they just call it what it is: further attempts at autocratic brainwashing. I for one ain’t buying the words of the Queens Felon. ds

© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2025