MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
In a 6-to-3 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court said President Trump can fire two members of independent agencies for now.
A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Yeah, it's not the final say on the matter, but it is an indication of how the Supreme Court views the extent of Trump's power.
MARTIN: NPR's Andrea Hsu is here to explain. Andrea, good morning.
ANDREA HSU, BYLINE: Good morning.
MARTIN: Could you just start by telling us who are these officials that Trump fired?
HSU: Yeah. So Gwynne Wilcox was a member of the National Labor Relations Board, and Cathy Harris sat on the Merit Systems Protection Board - that's the board that hears federal employee complaints. And they both sued saying Trump did not have the authority to fire them. In fact, in creating their agencies, Congress wrote into law that members can only be fired for cause like neglect of duty or malfeasance, but the Trump administration has been arguing that those restrictions on the president violate the Constitution. So that's the fight that's been playing out in the lower courts.
MARTIN: And what have the lower courts said?
MARTIN: Well, there's already been a lot of ping ponging back and forth, Michel. Initially, two judges found Wilcox and Harris' firings not only violated the law, but also ignored Supreme Court precedent - a case called Humphrey's Executor from 90 years ago. The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that Congress could limit the president's power to remove members of independent agencies, and so Wilcox and Harris actually went back to work for a while, but the government appealed. There was some back and forth. And last month, Chief Justice John Roberts stepped in and allowed Trump to remove Wilcox and Harris again.
HSU: And now the entire Supreme Court has weighed in.
MARTIN: Yeah. Yesterday, a majority of justices said they think Trump does have the authority to fire Wilcox and Harris for now, anyway. They wrote that the Constitution gives the president the power to fire at will those officials who help him carry out his duties with only narrow exceptions, and they said Wilcox and Harris probably don't qualify for those exceptions.
HSU: OK. So tell me more about this probably. Does that mean that this is not necessarily a definitive ruling?
MARTIN: That's right. It's a stay while the appeals court weighs the merits of the case. To be clear, the Supreme Court hasn't yet heard arguments in this case. This order came out of what's known as the emergency docket, which conservatives have increasingly relied on to get quick decisions without a hearing. And this is something that liberal Justice Elena Kagan brought up in her dissent. She wrote, our emergency docket, while fit for some things, should not be used to overrule or revise existing law - meaning Humphrey's Executor. She said what's at stake here is not just someone's job. It's this very idea that Congress embraced when it created independent agencies that, you know, if their members are insulated from political pressure, that they will make sound judgments that benefit the public good. Now, in recent years, the court has been chipping away at this idea and at Humphrey's Executor, but in yesterday's decision, the conservative majority did carve out an exception for one independent agency - the Federal Reserve.
MARTIN: OK, so what did they say about the Fed?
HSU: Well, Wilcox and Harris had warned that if the court finds that Trump can fire them, that nothing can stop him from firing Fed Chair Jerome Powell. And in fact, Trump did threaten to fire Powell, which tanked the markets. Later, he pulled back and said he had no intention of firing Powell. In any event, the conservative majority disagreed with the notion that their order would affect the Fed. They wrote that the Fed is a uniquely structured, quasi-private entity with a distinct historical tradition. Kagan scoffed at this in her dissent, and she maintained that the Fed's independence rests on the same foundation as other independent agencies. Now, again, yesterday's order is not the final word, but it does give us a pretty good sense of how the justices could rule if - and more likely when - they hear arguments in this case.
MARTIN: That is NPR's Andrea Hsu. Andrea, thank you.
HSU: You're welcome.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
