[T]he extraordinarily complex system created by the Copyright Act and related statutes cannot safely be revised this quickly without risking serious unintended consequences.
The question here is not whether the Register of Copyrights or the Librarian of Congress has any functions that can be characterized as 'executive' for constitutional purposes; it is whether Congress decided to organize the Library as an 'Executive agency'.
In an emergency shadow docket application filed late last month, the Solicitor General asked the Supreme Court to stay a D.C. Circuit injunction that allows Register of Copyrights Shira Perlmutter to continue serving in her position. The dispute centers on the separation of powers question: Is the Library of Congress an "Executive agency" subject to the Federal Vacancies Reform Act (FVRA), or did Congress deliberately exclude it from that category (and does Congress even have that power)?
