Trump-Fired Independent Agency Board Members Not Reinstated, Says Supreme Court

To underscore the strength of the executive branch, the conservative majority of the US Supreme Court made a noteworthy decision by not reinstating two heads of an independent agency after they had been fired from office by the then President Trump, which stands for very great presidential power.

The two officials who were ousted- Gwynne Wilcox of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and Cathy Harris of the Merit Systems Protection Board- were both selected by President Joe Biden. Their removal was not backed with specific reasons and the previous president, Trump, accused them of Trump’s removal by an irelevant issue. The Supreme Court’s order, which was not signed, actually amounts to an approval of Trump’s act while at the same time it is opposed to a lower court’s decision to temporarily reinstate the two ousted board members.

The step taken by the court, even though not a final judgment, is a clear signal of the belief that the Constitution might permit the presidents to dismiss members of the independent federal boards without even providing the valid reason. The temporary decision has the effect of allowing the wider legal fight to proceed but still mustache a possible deviation from the principal and unresolved legal status of 1935 Humphrey’s Executor case, which let a president withdraw board members but without cause.

In an earlier April ruling, Chief Justice John Roberts for the majority had hinted that he holds this position. The recent decision confirms and expands this position further, despite the final decision being reserved for future stages. Significantly, the decision also results in both NLRB and the Merit Systems Protection Board not having enough members to authorize major decisions.

Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, the liberal justices were the ones who wrote the separate opinion and expressed very strong disagreement with the idea that the independence of the US federal government agencies will be weakened if the given course of actions is followed. The first one said that the court’s decision would empower the President with the capability of executing a hitherto unheard-of level of government, and, by doing that, the agencies that have, in the past, been fairly autonomous from the presidency could be seen as instruments of that office. She even went as far as to say that, at least recently throughout the 20th century, launching such dismissals without any substantiated reason virtually never happened.

On the other hand, warnings from some legal experts and attorneys only put more pressure on the judges’ heads as there is the possibility that what they approved in this case can be a precedent that affects future dismissals at those other key institutions, e.g., the Federal Reserve Board. Before, Trump’s relationships with the head of the Federal Reserve had been described as tense. He even said something in public to the effect of considering firing him, but the justices were of the view that the Federal Reserve’s peculiar system of administration might be a reason for a different legal interpretation.

Even after D. John Sauer, the Solicitor General, was quite sure that the court’s judgment did not have an impact on the Fed’s case, the extrem Future results of the president’s broad discretionary powers are under scrutiny. But he did, however, confirm that the case of the Fed was not directly affected by the decision. This week was marked by a Supreme Court that seems to be inclined to give the President a lot of power, and that has provoked a great curiosity among the public.

Before this, the U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Columbia had made a decision of 7-4 in favor of reinstating Wilcox and Harris, based on the likelihood that their removal was unconstitutional. However, that court judgment has since been only temporarily overruled by the Supreme Court. So they were reckoned back in again, making a 7-4 decision in favor of the reinstatement of the two NLRB members who, it was voted definitively, were wrongfully dismissed from their post by the NLRB. The 5-member NLRB then appealed which was later denied by Circuit Court for the D.C. However due to a small error made by the Judge the judge who actually cast the vote (prior to this ruling no case was ever granted review) this was the only decision that was overturned.

Wilcox was known as the first Black woman to be a part of the NLRB. Not long ago has she been appointed for a five-year term. It wasn’t until last year that she was named. Both the NLRB and the Merit Systems Protection Board are involved in various labor and employment-related disputes, and should these two boards be paralyzed, the federal workforce reform will be affected in a major way, either slow down or bring to a halt will do.

The court’s decision is injecting a new spirit of energy and power into the already existing long endeavors made by conservative legal scholars to go over the (bureaucratic) structure of the New Deal and thus change it or completely destroy it. The legal dispute is still open however the present court is leaning towards a reshaping of the balance of powers in the direction of a stronger and more centralized executive department.