The Supreme Court on Thursday granted President Donald Trump a major win in his long-standing quest to fire the heads of independent agencies under the executive branch, allowing him to fire members of the Merit Systems Protection Board and the National Labor Relations Board.
Six Republican-appointed justices agreed that the burdens that would stem from precluding Trump from firing Gwynne Wilcox of the NLRB and Cathy Harris of the MSPB, two agency board members, would outweigh the relief sought by the pair, who were fighting to keep their jobs at the respective agencies.
“Because the Constitution vests the executive power in the President, he may remove without cause executive officers who exercise that power on his behalf, subject to narrow exceptions recognized by our precedents,” the majority held in a 6-3 decision, citing the high court’s 2020 precedent in Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Democratic-appointed Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, arguing that the order granting the president his request to stay lower court rulings “is nothing short of extraordinary.”
While the decision is a significant win for Trump, the majority’s opinion noted that the leverage given to Trump in this case does not extend to every corner of the federal government, noting that the same outcome would not arise in a dispute over removing officials at the Federal Reserve.
“The Federal Reserve is a uniquely structured, quasi-private entity that follows in the distinct historical tradition of the First and Second Banks of the United States,” the majority wrote.
Notably, the Supreme Court’s majority did not overturn the longstanding precedent cited by the federal officials who were fighting their removal. The 1935 decision of Humphrey’s Executor v. United States restricted the firing of independent agency heads, and Justice Department attorneys have said they seek to reverse it.
But the Democratic-appointed justices suggested in their dissent that this order ostensibly overturns Humphrey’s “pending over eventual review.”
This “order consents to the President’s (statutorily barred) removal of the NLRB and MSPB Commissioners, at least until we decide their suits on the merits. And so the order allows the President to overrule Humphrey’s by fiat, again pending our eventual review.”
Kagan wrote separately that no president since the 1950s has tried to remove an officer “from a classic independent agency,” noting that there are “for cause” removal protections that first required Trump to provide notice to Congress before removing them.
Wilcox and Harris sued after being fired by the Trump administration, claiming their removals violated laws requiring cause for termination. Two D.C. district judges agreed, allowing them to stay in their roles during the lawsuits.
A three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit later paused those rulings, letting the firings proceed, but the full court in an en banc review reversed that decision in a 7-4 vote, reinstating the lower court orders and allowing both officials to return to work while their cases continued.
DC CIRCUIT PANEL SKEPTICAL OF TRUMP ADMINISTRATION ABILITY TO FIRE INDEPENDENT OFFICIALS
Last week, the pair of officials returned to the same appeals court to renew their bid to keep their jobs, where they were met by a panel split on whether to keep them or side with the administration in its bid to fire them.
The Supreme Court’s decision might not be the final time the justices weigh the president’s authority to fire independent agency heads, depending on the outcome of Wilcox and Harris’s pending decision at the appeals court.
