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officer." Id., at 172. We found it significant that the sections of the UCMJ relating to military judges "speak explicitly and exclusively in terms of 'detail' or 'assign'; nowhere in these sections is mention made of a separate appointment." Ibid. This analysis suggests that Article 66(a) concerns not the appointment of Court of Criminal Appeals judges, but only their assignment.
Moreover, we see no other way to interpret Article 66(a) that would make it consistent with the Constitution. Under the Appointments Clause, Congress could not give the Judge Advocates General power to "appoint" even inferior officers of the United States; that power can be conferred only upon the President, department heads, and courts of law. Thus, petitioners are asking us to interpret Article 66(a) in a manner that would render it clearly unconstitutional—which we must of course avoid doing if there is another reasonable interpretation available. NLRB v. Catholic Bishop of Chicago, 440 U. S. 490, 500 (1979); Blodgett v. Holden, 275 U. S. 142 (1927). Petitioners respond that reading § 323(a) to permit the Secretary to appoint Court of Criminal Appeals judges causes us unnecessarily to reach the constitutional question whether those judges are inferior officers under the Appointments Clause, since Congress may vest only the appointment of inferior officers in a department head. But a constitutional question confronted in order to preserve, if possible, a congressional enactment is not a constitutional question confronted unnecessarily.
We conclude that Article 66(a) does not give Judge Advocates General authority to appoint Court of Criminal Appeals judges; that § 323(a) does give the Secretary of Transportation authority to do so; and we turn to the constitutional question whether this is consistent with the Appointments Clause.
III
The Appointments Clause of Article II of the Constitution reads as follows:
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