WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court said Monday it will consider expanding President Donald Trump’s power to shape independent agencies by overturning a nearly century-old decision limiting when presidents can fire board members. In a 6-3 decision, the high court also allowed the Republican president to carry out the firing of Rebecca Slaughter, a Democratic member of the Federal Trade Commission, while the case plays out.

It’s the latest high-profile firing the court has allowed in recent months, signaling the conservative majority is poised to overturn or narrow a 1935 Supreme Court decision that found commissioners can only be removed for misconduct or neglect of duty. Justice Elena Kagan, joined by Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented from the decision allowing Slaughter’s firing. It comes after similar decisions affecting three other independent agencies.

“Congress, as everyone agrees, prohibited each of those presidential removals,” Kagan wrote. “Yet the majority, stay order by stay order, has handed full control of all those agencies to the President.” The majority did not detail their reasoning on allowing Slaughter’s firing, as is typical on the court’s emergency docket.

The justices are expected to hear arguments in December over whether to overturn a 90-year-old ruling known as Humphrey’s Executor. In that case, the court sided with another FTC commissioner who was fired by Franklin D. Roosevelt as the president worked to implement the New Deal. The justices unanimously found commissioners can be removed only for misconduct or neglect of duty.

That 1935 decision ushered in an era of powerful independent federal agencies charged with regulating labor relations, employment discrimination and public airwaves. But it has long rankled conservative legal theorists who argue such agencies should answer to the president. The Justice Department argues Trump can fire board members for any reason as he works to carry out his agenda. “The President and the government suffer irreparable harm when courts transfer even some of that executive power to officers beyond the President’s control,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote. Courts have no power to order reinstatement, only back pay, Sauer argued.

But Slaughter’s attorneys say that regulatory decisions will be based more on politics than on board members’ expertise if the president can fire congressionally confirmed board members at will. “If the President is to be given new powers Congress has expressly and repeatedly refused to give him, that decision should come from the people’s elected representatives,” they argued.

The court will hear arguments unusually early in the process, before the case has fully worked its way through lower courts.

The court rejected a push from two other board members of independent agencies who had asked the justices to also hear their cases if they took up the Slaughter case: Gwynne Wilcox, of the National Labor Relations Board, and Cathy Harris, of the Merit Systems Protection Board. Those cases will continue to work their way through the lower courts.

The FTC is a regulator enforcing consumer protection measures and antitrust legislation. The NLRB investigates unfair labor practices and oversees union elections, while the MSPB reviews disputes from federal workers.

The court has already allowed the president to fire all three board members for now. The court has suggested, however, that the president’s power to fire could have limits at the Federal Reserve, a prospect expected to be tested by the case of fired Fed Governor Lisa Cook.

  • DarkFuture@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    7
    ·
    19 hours ago

    Reminder that the conservative Supreme Court justices are traitors to the United States of America.

  • LoafedBurrito@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    6
    ·
    19 hours ago

    I mean, why doesn’t the supreme court just quit entirely at this point and let donald do whatever the hell he wants to do. They are useless in the fight for law and order and just give the nazi everything he wants.

    The US is done, we are finished and those of us who make it to age 60 or 70 will be REALLY lucky.

  • Bwaz@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    20 hours ago

    Gee, I wonder if that decision would have been made if a Democrat were the President. Or if they’d change it back should an election (somehow) make that happen, unlikely as that seems at this dictatorshipping point.

    • samus12345@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      18 hours ago

      Gee, I wonder if that decision would have been made if a Democrat were the President.

      Yes. they know they can give the president whatever crazy unconstitutional powers they want, because Democrats are too afraid of being seen as uncivil to use them.

    • hector@lemmy.today
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      18 hours ago

      If there is another Democratic president their plan went horribly arry because they plan on fixing elections. In case 2020 didn’t give it away…

  • zephiriz@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    21 hours ago

    So on this note anyone know a country that would accept a white guy and could have an early retirement for about $500k? Was thinking the Philippines. Any other recommendations? Don’t really mind where just don’t want to make the newspaper of some white guy killed in mugging.

  • grue@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    46
    ·
    2 days ago

    It figures that rulings which got made in the first place to hamstring a progressive get overturned to give free reign to a fascist.

  • einlander@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    57
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    2 days ago

    They are banking on a democrat never having power again. Otherwise someone will use that power against them without impunity.

  • Mediocre_Bard@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    14
    ·
    1 day ago

    Thank god their responses are written. We won’t be able to understand a damn thing with all the orange cum in their mouths.

    • PapaStevesy@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      10
      ·
      1 day ago

      Yeeeeeah, about that…

      The majority did not detail their reasoning on allowing Slaughter’s firing, as is typical on the court’s emergency docket.

      • ShieldsUp@startrek.website
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        19 hours ago

        Typical, but not required! If it was required they would probably write bullshit anyway, but this is not even the minimum of standards they are trying to uphold. A supreme joke of a court.

  • Ghyste@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    26
    ·
    2 days ago

    If the President has full power to fire congressionally confirmed positions, the Supreme Court is next

  • FenderStratocaster@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    14
    ·
    2 days ago

    Politics aside, look at that fucking makeup. Who would vote for such fucking whacko looking person. It’s outlandish to even contemplate an outsider looking in on this fucking mentally-ill psychopath.