Abstract
The independence of the Federal Reserve, long an article of faith among lawmakers, is under attack. From the attempted removal of a member of the Board of Governors to an Executive Order subjecting the Federal Reserve's regulatory and supervisory actions to executive oversight, both the formal legal architecture and informal political norms that have long insulated the central bank from presidential control are being challenged in unprecedented ways. Amidst growing calls to reevaluate the Federal Reserve's mandate and strip the central bank of its regulatory and supervisory authority, recovering the neglected history of the Federal Reserve's role as a regulator and supervisor could not be timelier. Utilizing archival sources, this Article provides a comprehensive account of the dramatic, yet largely accidental, expansion of the Federal Reserve's regulatory and supervisory power over the course of the twentieth century. As the Article argues, the rise of the bank holding company, a corporation created to acquire and hold the stock of banks and other financial entities, as the dominant organizational structure of modern American finance unexpectedly transformed the Federal Reserve into the regulator-in-chief of the American financial system. Ultimately, retracing the Federal Reserve's inadvertent path to regulatory supremacy, and the efforts to reconfigure that arrangement over the twentieth century, serves as a critical reminder of the roads not traveled and opens up new possibilities in a key moment of reform.
Recommended Citation
Jamie Grischkan, The Accidental Regulator-in-Chief: The Federal Reserve's Path to Power, 20 FIU L. Rev. 783 (2026), https://doi.org/10.25148/lawrev.20.3.5.
