The Supreme Court allows Trump to dismiss a regulator of safety of products consumption
The Supreme Court allows Trump to dismiss members of the consumer product safety agency, which is an entity independent of the federal government
The Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed President Donald Trump to remove for now three members of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the latest case in which the conservative court backed an emergency appeal from the administration.
In a brief, unsigned order, the court said it was bound by an earlier decision allowing Trump to temporarily remove two top officials at independent federal labor agencies while legal challenges were resolved.
"The Consumer Product Safety Commission exercises executive power similarly to the National Labor Relations Board, and the case does not differ from Wilcox in any relevant respect," the court said in its order.
Liberal Justice Elena Kagan, writing for her two left-leaning colleagues, said the court was destroying "an agency's independence" independent and taking a piecemeal approach to giving the president more power.
President Trump removed the three board members in May, but a federal district court ordered their reinstatement last month. The administration asked the Supreme Court to stay that injunction, which would again remove those three commissioners from the board.
Like other emergency cases that have come before the Supreme Court since Trump returned to power, the central question is how much control a president has over independent agencies whose leadership is supposed to be immune to the political whims of the White House.
The three board members involved in the case” Mary Boyle, Alexander Hoehn-Saric, and Richard Trumka Jr. ” were appointed by President Joe Biden and confirmed by the Senate.
Without the three members in place, The five-member commission would currently lack the quorum needed to fulfill its duty to protect consumers from defective products. Under current law, members can be removed only for "neglect of duty or malpractice," but Trump moved to remove them anyway, as he has at other agencies with similar restrictions as part of his aggressive efforts to restructure the federal government. The Supreme Court has ruled in favor of the Trump administration on a wide range of issues in cases that come before the court on an urgent basis, with decisions made quickly with little explanation and without extensive briefing or oral arguments.