That's what Trump did in May, providing no reason for removing all three Democratic commissioners on the five-person board, despite a federal law that allows commissioners to be fired only for “neglect of duty or malfeasance.”
The court provided a brief, unsigned explanation that the case is similar to earlier ones in which it allowed Trump to fire board members of other independent agencies, whom Congress protected from arbitrary dismissals.
The three liberal justices dissented. "By means of such actions, this Court may facilitate the permanent transfer of authority, piece by piece by piece, from one branch of Government to another,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote for herself, as well as Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
The commission helps protect consumers from dangerous products by issuing recalls, suing errant companies and more. The fired commissioners had been serving seven-year terms after being nominated by President Joe Biden.
U.S. District Judge Matthew Maddox in Baltimore ruled in June that the dismissals were unlawful. Maddox sought to distinguish the commission’s role from those of other agencies where the Supreme Court has allowed firings to go forward.
A month earlier, the high court's conservative majority declined to reinstate members of the National Labor Relations Board and the Merit Systems Protection Board, finding that the Constitution appears to give the president the authority to fire the board members "without cause."
The administration has argued that all the agencies are under Trump’s control as the head of the executive branch.
Maddox, a Biden nominee, noted that it can be difficult to characterize the product safety commission’s functions as purely executive.
The fight over the president's power to fire could prompt the court to consider overturning a 90-year-old Supreme Court decision known as Humphrey's Executor. In that case from 1935, the court unanimously held that presidents cannot fire independent board members without cause.
The decision ushered in an era of powerful independent federal agencies charged with regulating labor relations, employment discrimination, the airwaves and much else. But it has long rankled conservative legal theorists who argue the modern administrative state gets the Constitution all wrong because such agencies should answer to the president.
Kagan wrote that the court already has “all but overturned Humphrey’s Executor.”
Other removals are making their way to the high court, including the firing of a member of the Federal Trade Commission, the very agency at issue in Humphrey's Executor.
Last week, a federal judge ordered Rebecca Slaughter reinstated as a commissioner. Slaughter returned to work Friday. By Tuesday, she had been sidelined again after an appeals court temporarily blocked the judge's order.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission was created in 1972. Its five members must maintain a partisan split, with no more than three representing the president’s party. They serve staggered terms.
That structure ensures that each president has “the opportunity to influence, but not control,” the commission, attorneys for the fired commissioners wrote in court filings. They argued the recent terminations could jeopardize the commission’s independence.
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