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The Supreme Court just handed President Trump a. big win, backing his move to remove two Democratic appointees, Gwynne Wilcox from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and Cathy Harris from the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), from their federal perches.
This Thursday ruling is a big deal, settling a heated fight over how much power a president has to fire agency officials who don’t jive with his agenda.
The drama kicked off when Chief Justice John Roberts hit the pause button on reinstating Wilcox and Harris, both Biden picks who got the axe from Trump earlier this year. Both cried foul, calling their terminations “unlawful” in lawsuits filed in D.C. federal court, but the Supreme Court’s decision suggests Trump’s got the upper hand—for now.
That said, the court dropped a hint it might not be so quick to let Trump replace Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, who’s been in Trump’s crosshairs for not slashing interest rates fast enough. (Good luck firing a guy who controls the money printer, right?)
At the heart of this mess is a 90-year-old Supreme Court ruling called Humphrey’s Executor, which said presidents can’t just fire independent board members without a good reason. The question before the justices: Can Wilcox and Harris, both Biden appointees, keep their jobs while the courts wrestle with whether to chuck Humphrey’s into the legal dustbin?
The court’s three liberal justices—Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson—weren’t having it. Kagan came out swinging in her dissent: “Not since the 1950s (or even before) has a President, without a legitimate reason, tried to remove an officer from a classic independent agency.” She didn’t stop there, accusing her colleagues of itching to give Trump “the most unitary, meaning also the most subservient, administration since Herbert Hoover (and maybe ever).”
Trump’s legal team, meanwhile, was all about keeping Wilcox and Harris out of their jobs while the case grinds through the lower courts. They even pushed for the Supreme Court to skip the usual appeals process and fast-track the whole thing with a rare “certiorari before judgment” move, because letting Wilcox and Harris back in would, in their words, “entrust” the president’s powers “for the months or years that it could take the courts to resolve this litigation.” That, they argued, “would manifestly cause irreparable harm to the President and to the separation of powers.”
Rewind to earlier this month when the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals voted 7–4 to put Wilcox and Harris back on their boards, leaning on Humphrey’s Executor and another oldie, Wiener v. United States. Those rulings say the president’s power to fire members of independent agencies like the NLRB and MSPB isn’t absolute. The D.C. Circuit wasn’t buying Trump’s argument for an administrative stay to keep the removals in place, pointing out that the Supreme Court has never overturned these precedents. “The Supreme Court has repeatedly told the courts of appeals to follow extant Supreme Court precedent unless and until that Court itself changes it or overturns it,” the judges wrote.
Trump’s team ran straight to the Supreme Court, which slapped an emergency stay on the reinstatement, keeping Wilcox and Harris sidelined. In their own filings, Wilcox and Harris’s lawyers begged the court to let them back in until the appeals process plays out. They warned against rushing things, with Harris’s team telling the justices, “Rushing such important matters risks making mistakes and destabilizing other areas of the law.” Wilcox’s camp doubled down, arguing that yanking her from the NLRB’s three-member panel could “bring an immediate and indefinite halt to the NLRB’s critical work of adjudicating labor-relations disputes.”
This isn’t the only case poking at the president’s firing powers. Hampton Dellinger, a Biden appointee to the Office of Special Counsel, also sued after getting fired on Feb. 7. He argued he could only be fired for job performance issues, which Trump’s team didn’t bother citing in their dismissal email. Dellinger dropped his suit after the D.C. Circuit sided with Trump in an unsigned order, but the broader fight’s far from over.
And the Justice Department is not hiding its cards. Back in February, they told Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) they’re gunning to overturn Humphrey’s Executor altogether. If that happens, it’s a whole new ballgame for how much control a president has over the so-called “independent” agencies.
The drama kicked off when Chief Justice John Roberts hit the pause button on reinstating Wilcox and Harris, both Biden picks who got the axe from Trump earlier this year. Both cried foul, calling their terminations “unlawful” in lawsuits filed in D.C. federal court, but the Supreme Court’s decision suggests Trump’s got the upper hand—for now.
That said, the court dropped a hint it might not be so quick to let Trump replace Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, who’s been in Trump’s crosshairs for not slashing interest rates fast enough. (Good luck firing a guy who controls the money printer, right?)
At the heart of this mess is a 90-year-old Supreme Court ruling called Humphrey’s Executor, which said presidents can’t just fire independent board members without a good reason. The question before the justices: Can Wilcox and Harris, both Biden appointees, keep their jobs while the courts wrestle with whether to chuck Humphrey’s into the legal dustbin?
The court’s three liberal justices—Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson—weren’t having it. Kagan came out swinging in her dissent: “Not since the 1950s (or even before) has a President, without a legitimate reason, tried to remove an officer from a classic independent agency.” She didn’t stop there, accusing her colleagues of itching to give Trump “the most unitary, meaning also the most subservient, administration since Herbert Hoover (and maybe ever).”
That’s Kagan saying that the majority’s playing favorites, and it’s not subtle.
Trump’s legal team, meanwhile, was all about keeping Wilcox and Harris out of their jobs while the case grinds through the lower courts. They even pushed for the Supreme Court to skip the usual appeals process and fast-track the whole thing with a rare “certiorari before judgment” move, because letting Wilcox and Harris back in would, in their words, “entrust” the president’s powers “for the months or years that it could take the courts to resolve this litigation.” That, they argued, “would manifestly cause irreparable harm to the President and to the separation of powers.”
In other words, if Trump can’t control his own executive branch, it’s chaos, and he’d have to spend months undoing whatever these two do in the meantime.
Rewind to earlier this month when the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals voted 7–4 to put Wilcox and Harris back on their boards, leaning on Humphrey’s Executor and another oldie, Wiener v. United States. Those rulings say the president’s power to fire members of independent agencies like the NLRB and MSPB isn’t absolute. The D.C. Circuit wasn’t buying Trump’s argument for an administrative stay to keep the removals in place, pointing out that the Supreme Court has never overturned these precedents. “The Supreme Court has repeatedly told the courts of appeals to follow extant Supreme Court precedent unless and until that Court itself changes it or overturns it,” the judges wrote.
Fair point, but it didn’t last long.
Trump’s team ran straight to the Supreme Court, which slapped an emergency stay on the reinstatement, keeping Wilcox and Harris sidelined. In their own filings, Wilcox and Harris’s lawyers begged the court to let them back in until the appeals process plays out. They warned against rushing things, with Harris’s team telling the justices, “Rushing such important matters risks making mistakes and destabilizing other areas of the law.” Wilcox’s camp doubled down, arguing that yanking her from the NLRB’s three-member panel could “bring an immediate and indefinite halt to the NLRB’s critical work of adjudicating labor-relations disputes.”
Their point is that kicking her out doesn’t just tweak policy, it grinds the agency to a halt, which they say screws over Congress’s mandate.
This isn’t the only case poking at the president’s firing powers. Hampton Dellinger, a Biden appointee to the Office of Special Counsel, also sued after getting fired on Feb. 7. He argued he could only be fired for job performance issues, which Trump’s team didn’t bother citing in their dismissal email. Dellinger dropped his suit after the D.C. Circuit sided with Trump in an unsigned order, but the broader fight’s far from over.
And the Justice Department is not hiding its cards. Back in February, they told Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) they’re gunning to overturn Humphrey’s Executor altogether. If that happens, it’s a whole new ballgame for how much control a president has over the so-called “independent” agencies.
Buckle up—this one’s got legs.
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