 As an initial matter, most government employees are not officers and thus are not subject to the Appointments Clause.In "Buckley v. Valeo", the Supreme Court held that only those appointees "exercising significant authority pursuant to the laws of the United States" are "Officers of the United States," and hence it is only those who exercise such "significant authority" who must be appointed by a mechanism set forth in the Appointments Clause.The Framers of the U.S.A Constitution did not define the line between principal officers and inferior officers, and the Supreme Court has been content to approach the analysis on a case-by-case basis rather than through a definitive test.