The US supreme court let Donald Trump on Wednesday remove three Democratic members of the government’s top consumer product safety watchdog, boosting his power over federal agencies set up by Congress to be independent from presidential control.
Granting a justice department request, the justices lifted Maryland-based US district judge Matthew Maddox’s order that had blocked Trump from dismissing three Consumer Product Safety Commission members appointed by Democratic former president Joe Biden while a legal challenge to their removal proceeds.
Maddox had ruled that Trump overstepped his authority in firing commissioners Mary Boyle, Alexander Hoehn-Saric and Richard Trumka Jr.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission was created by Congress in 1972 and tasked with reducing the risk to consumers of injury or death from defective or harmful products. The agency sets safety standards, conducts product-safety investigations and issues recalls of hazardous products.
To establish the five-member commission’s independence from direct White House control, Congress authorized the president to fire commissioners only for neglect of duty or malfeasance, not at will.
After being notified in May that Trump had fired them, Boyle, Hoehn-Saric and Trumka sued, arguing that their removals were without basis and that Trump had exceeded his authority. The staggered, seven-year terms of the commissioners were not set to expire until October 2025, 2027 and 2028, respectively, according to court filings.
The justice department argued that the law shielding commissioners from being fired except for good cause violates the president’s removal authority under the US constitution’s provision delineating executive power.
Maddox, a Biden appointee, sided with the commissioners in a 2 July ruling and ordered their reinstatement. The judge upheld the commission’s removal protections under a nine-decade-old supreme court precedent that preserved similar protections for US Federal Trade Commission members.
The Richmond, Virginia-based US fourth circuit court of appeals on 1 July denied the administration’s request to halt Maddox’s reinstatement order. This prompted the justice department’s emergency filing to the supreme court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority.
The commissioners in their supreme court filing urged the justices to reject the administration’s request. They said that allowing the dismissals would deprive the American public of critical consumer safety expertise and oversight.
In May, the supreme court in a similar case allowed Trump to remove two Democratic members of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) – despite job protections for these posts – while a legal challenge to those removals proceeded.
The court in that ruling said the constitution gives the president wide latitude to fire government officials who wield executive power on his behalf and that the administration “is likely to show that both the NLRB and MSPB exercise considerable executive power”.
The supreme court has sided with Trump in a series of cases on an emergency basis since he returned to office in January, including clearing the way for his administration to pursue mass government job cuts, gut the Department of Education and implement some of his hardline immigration policies.
