The Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority recently dealt a blow to nearly a century of precedent that has prevented presidents from firing independent agency heads without cause.
Last week, the court approved President Donald Trump’s request to reverse a lower court’s ruling that blocked Trump from firing members of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB).
“Because the Constitution vests the executive power in the President, he may remove without cause executive officers who exercise that power on his behalf, subject to narrow exceptions recognized by our precedents,” the court majority wrote.
The majority added that it did not “ultimately decide” whether NLRB and MSPB fell within those narrow exceptions. But legal experts say the decision — made through the emergency or “shadow” docket — signals that the Supreme Court is poised to undercut the historic independence of agencies like the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
