As The Des Moines Register’s Tom Beaumont reports, Sen. John McCain said in Cedar Rapids today that he would fire Christopher Cox, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, if he were president.

The only problem is that, while the president is empowered to appoint the SEC chairperson (with advice and consent from the Senate), he is not empowered to fire him.  He could ask the chair to resign, but as ABC News reports, that doesn’t always work:

From time to time, presidents have attempted to remove commissioners who have proven “uncooperative.” However, the courts have general[ly] upheld the independence of commissioners. In 1935, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt fired a member of the Federal Trade Commission and the Supreme Court ruled the president acted unconstitutionally.

Beaumont’s story does not mention the Constitutional question.