Peekabo the Unassailable?

Today CIR filed a brief in the U.S. Supreme Court in a lawsuit organized by former CIR board member Mike Carvin against the federal Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB).  The suit seeks the dissolution of this powerful agency on basic constitutional grounds, including the separation of powers.

The PCAOB (nicknamed “Peekaboo”) is all the rage in statist policy circles, for it has been designed both to have vast power over private enterprises (which it may even tax to fund its own budget) and to be shielded from accountability to officials elected by the people. In our brief, CIR takes issue with Peekaboo’s further assertion that it need not even answer to the courts — which it claims have no jurisdiction to hear such cases as the one now brought against it.