Cite as: 520 U. S. 651 (1997)
Opinion of the Court
"[The President] shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments." U. S. Const., Art. II, § 2, cl. 2.
As we recognized in Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1, 125 (1976) (per curiam), the Appointments Clause of Article II is more than a matter of "etiquette or protocol"; it is among the significant structural safeguards of the constitutional scheme. By vesting the President with the exclusive power to select the principal (noninferior) officers of the United States, the Appointments Clause prevents congressional encroachment upon the Executive and Judicial Branches. See id., at 128-131; Weiss, supra, at 183-185 (Souter, J., concurring); Freytag v. Commissioner, 501 U. S. 868, 904, and n. 4 (1991) (Scalia, J., concurring). This disposition was also designed to assure a higher quality of appointments: The Framers anticipated that the President would be less vulnerable to interest-group pressure and personal favoritism than would a collective body. "The sole and undivided responsibility of one man will naturally beget a livelier sense of duty, and a more exact regard to reputation." The Federalist No. 76, p. 387 (M. Beloff ed. 1987) (A. Hamilton); accord, 3 J. Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States 374-375 (1833). The President's power to select principal officers of the United States was not left unguarded, however, as Article II further requires the "Advice and Consent of the Senate." This serves both to curb Executive abuses of the appointment power, see 3 Story, supra, at 376- 377, and "to promote a judicious choice of [persons] for filling the offices of the union," The Federalist No. 76, at 386-387.
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