congressional elections, by virtue of the power conferred in Art. I, § 4.174 This Court has also held that it has very broad authority to prevent corruption in national Presidential elections. Burroughs v. United States, 290 U. S. 534 (1934). But Congress has plenary authority in all areas in which it has substantive legislative jurisdiction, M'Culloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316 (1819), so long as the exercise of that authority does not offend some other constitutional restriction. We see no reason to believe that the authority of Congress over federal election practices is of such a wholly different nature from the other grants of authority to Congress that it may be employed in such a manner as to offend well-established constitutional restrictions stemming from the separation of powers.

The position that because Congress has been given explicit and plenary authority to regulate a field of activity, it must therefore have the power to appoint those who are to administer the regulatory statute is both novel and contrary to the language of the Appointments Clause. Unless their selection is elsewhere provided for, all officers of the United States are to be appointed in accordance with the Clause. Principal officers are selected by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate. Inferior officers Congress may allow to be appointed by the President alone, by the heads of departments, or by the Judiciary. No class or type of officer is excluded because of its special functions. The President appoints judicial as well as executive officers. Neither has it been disputed-and apparently

174 "The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators."

it is not now disputed-that the Clause controls the appointment of the members of a typical administrative agency even though its functions, as this Court recognized in Humphrey's Executor v. United States, 295 U. S. 602, 624 (1935), may be "predominantly quasi-judicial and quasi-legislative" rather than executive. The Court in that case carefully emphasized that although the members of such agencies were to be independent of the Executive in their day-to-day operations, the Executive was not excluded from selecting them. Id., at 625-626.

Appellees argue that the legislative authority conferred upon the Congress in Art. I, § 4, to regulate "the Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives" is augmented by the provision in §5 that "Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members." Section 5 confers, however, not a general legislative power upon the Congress, but rather a power “judicial in character" upon each House of the Congress. Barry v. United States ex rel. Cunningham, 279 U. S. 597, 613 (1929). The power of each House to judge whether one claiming election as Senator or Representative has met the requisite qualifications, Powell v. McCormack, 395 U. S. 486 (1969), cannot reasonably be translated into a power granted to the Congress itself to impose substantive qualifications on the right to so hold such office. Whatever power Congress may have to legislate, such qualifications must derive from § 4, rather than § 5, of Art. I.

Appellees also rely on the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution insofar as the authority of the Commission to regulate practices in connection with the Presidential election is concerned. This Amendment provides that certificates of the votes of the electors be "sealed [and]

directed to the President of the Senate," and that the "President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted." The method by which Congress resolved the celebrated disputed Hayes-Tilden election of 1876, reflected in 19 Stat. 227, supports the conclusion that Congress viewed this Amendment as conferring upon its two Houses the same sort of power "judicial in character," Barry v. United States ex rel. Cunningham, supra, at 613, as was conferred upon each House by Art. I, § 5, with respect to elections of its own members.

We are also told by appellees and amici that Congress had good reason for not vesting in a Commission composed wholly of Presidential appointees the authority to administer the Act, since the administration of the Act would undoubtedly have a bearing on any incumbent President's campaign for re-election. While one cannot dispute the basis for this sentiment as a practical matter, it would seem that those who sought to challenge incumbent Congressmen might have equally good reason to fear a Commission which was unduly responsive to members of Congress whom they were seeking to unseat. But such fears, however rational, do not by themselves warrant a distortion of the Framers' work.

Appellee Commission and amici finally contend, and the majority of the Court of Appeals agreed with them, that whatever shortcomings the provisions for the appointment of members of the Commission might have under Art. II, Congress had ample authority under the Necessary and Proper Clause of Art. I to effectuate this result. We do not agree. The proper inquiry when considering the Necessary and Proper Clause is not the authority of Congress to create an office or a commission, which is broad indeed, but rather its authority to pro

vide that its own officers may make appointments to such office or commission.

So framed, the claim that Congress may provide for this manner of appointment under the Necessary and Proper Clause of Art. I stands on no better footing than the claim that it may provide for such manner of appointment because of its substantive authority to regulate federal elections. Congress could not, merely because it concluded that such a measure was "necessary and proper" to the discharge of its substantive legislative authority, pass a bill of attainder or ex post facto law contrary to the prohibitions contained in §9 of Art. I. No more may it vest in itself, or in its officers, the authority to appoint officers of the United States when the Appointments Clause by clear implication prohibits it from doing so.

The trilogy of cases from this Court dealing with the constitutional authority of Congress to circumscribe the President's power to remove officers of the United States is entirely consistent with this conclusion. In Myers v. United States, 272 U. S. 52 (1926), the Court held that Congress could not by statute divest the President of the power to remove an officer in the Executive Branch whom he was initially authorized to appoint. In explaining its reasoning in that case, the Court said:

"The vesting of the executive power in the President was essentially a grant of the power to execute the laws. But the President alone and unaided could not execute the laws. He must execute them by the assistance of subordinates. . . . As he is charged specifically to take care that they be faithfully executed, the reasonable implication, even in the absence of express words, was that as part of his executive power he should select those who were

to act for him under his direction in the execution of the laws.

"Our conclusion on the merits, sustained by the arguments before stated, is that Article II grants to the President the executive power of the Government, i. e., the general administrative control of those executing the laws, including the power of appointment and removal of executive officers-a conclusion confirmed by his obligation to take care that the laws be faithfully executed . . Id., at 117, 163-164.

In the later case of Humphrey's Executor, where it was held that Congress could circumscribe the President's power to remove members of independent regulatory agencies, the Court was careful to note that it was dealing with an agency intended to be independent of executive authority "except in its selection." 295 U. S., at 625 (emphasis in original). Wiener v. United States, 357 U. S. 349 (1958), which applied the holding in Humphrey's Executor to a member of the War Claims Commission, did not question in any respect that members of independent agencies are not independent of the Executive with respect to their appointments.

This conclusion is buttressed by the fact that Mr. Justice Sutherland, the author of the Court's opinion in Humphrey's Executor, likewise wrote the opinion for the Court in Springer v. Philippine Islands, 277 U. S. 189 (1928), in which it was said:

"Not having the power of appointment, unless expressly granted or incidental to its powers, the legislature cannot engraft executive duties upon a legislative office, since that would be to usurp the power of appointment by indirection; though the case might be different if the additional duties.