A U.S. District Court held that Trump’s firing of Democratic board members from two federal agencies created by Congress were illegal and issued injunctions restoring both members to their boards.
The Supreme Court’s Trump-favoring majority (“Trump’s Majority”) blocked both injunctions which freed Trump to replace Democrats with Republicans in the hundreds of agencies created by Congress in the face of Congress’s express prohibition against such firings without cause – something Trump never raised. The agencies were created to perform legislative policies with more expertise than Congress had. The majority’s holding also violated 90 years of Supreme Court precedent in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States in 1935, followed by a unanimous decision in 1957 holding that Congress intended to create an agency that was “‘entirely free from the control or coercive influence of the Executive.”
Trump’s Majority’s holding allowed Trump to take the next step towards king status. He can now stack the agencies with his loyalists and usurp Congress’s policymaking authority. Take, for example, two feared possibilities:
- Trump takes control of the NLRB which protects the rights of workers to organize and bargain collectively. Good bye unions …that is that don’t vote for MAGA Republicans.
- The worst calamity would be if Trump’s Majority allows him to fire Federal Reserve Board members without cause, which they’d have to to be consistent with their holding that let Trump fire the two board members. A hearing on the matter is scheduled for January. If the Court finds for Trump, he would control interest rates, the money supply flowing through the economy, and when to print money. He will have gained extraordinary power to reward his friends and destroy his enemies.
The prohibition against a president’s firings reflects Congress’s belief that knowledgeable people from both parties [emphasis added] would make decisions that advance the long-term public good. Its intent couldn’t be clearer.
Trump however dreads bipartisanship. So, confident that the Supreme Court Majority is on his team, he got it to stay the order reinstating the two board members on their boards. Trump’s Majority mangled the Constitution to accommodate him, holding that Congress’s restrictions on the President’s firing authority violated the Constitution’s separation of powers requirement.
The majority Justices also stated their hollow belief that the government faces more risk than the removed officer from allowing the removed officer to remain on their boards. The majority’s belief is credible only if the risk the majority referred to arises from Trump replacing Democrats with the type of unqualified sycophants Trump chose for his cabinet.
The majority also omitted the obvious – allowing a president to fire employees without cause is as clear a violation as the Constitution’s separation of powers and of its mandate for the independence of the government’s three branches and its blueprint for checks and balances.
The majority Justices violated their Judicial Oaths “to administer justice without respect to persons and .… impartially [emphasis added] perform all duties incumbent upon me under the Constitution…. So help me God.” By the way, Its not the first time Trump’s Majority butchered the Constitution to favor Trump.
In another recent case, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments regarding whether Trump’s firing of Commissioners of the FTC, another independent bipartisan agency created by Congress with legislation prohibiting the President from firing its employs without cause. Sadly, Trump’s Majority is more than likely to overrule its own decision in the Humphrey’s case which would have prohibited Trump’s firings.
If you’re wondering why Supreme Court Justices would enable Trump’s path to a dictatorship, here’s an answer:
Every Majority Justice (John Roberts, Brett Karnaugh, Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Amy Coney Barrett), was funded and masterminded by the Federalist Society, piloted by reactionary billionaire Leonard Leo. It’s not a stretch to say that these Justices repeatedly ruled in favor of their patron’s priorities rather than the Constitution. Take a look:
- Keeping Trump in office: Trump’s Majority gave him broad immunity and delayed Jack Smith’s criminal trial against him for eleven months, until his win in 2024 election, after which the case was dismissed. In contrast, the Supreme Court took just 16 days to unanimously decide that Nixon wasn’t immune from prosecution and one day to decide Bush v. Gore.
- Rolling back prohibitions against racial discrimination in voting: In Alexander v. South Carolina NAACP Trump’s Majority upheld a Republican legislature’s removal 60% of Black voters from their Congressional district into a White-denominated district to ensure a Republican win.
- Deregulation of corporations. For decades courts deferred to an agency’s interpretation of unclear legislation. The Trump’s Majority held that only the courts can decide if an agency’s interpretation of an unclear statute is correct. The holding transferred enormous amounts of policymaking to the Judiciary, which lacks the expertise and personnel to do the job — an indirect form of deregulation.
- Restricting access to abortion. Enough said.
Tragically, America has lost its last stop to unencumbered justice. If the country wants it back, either Trump-coddling Republicans need to find their true patriotism, or they must be replaced by Republicans not enslaved by Trump, or Democrats must recapture their Congressional majorities. Then, Trump’s Majority can be replaced by justices – Republican or Democrat — with allegiance to the Constitution.
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