By MARK SHERMAN
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed the Trump administration to remove three Democratic members of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, who had been fired by President Donald Trump and then reinstated by a federal judge.
The justices acted on an emergency appeal from the Justice Department, which argued that the agency is under Trump’s control and the president is free to remove commissioners without cause.
The three liberal justices dissented.
The commission helps protect consumers from dangerous products by issuing recalls, suing errant companies and more. Trump fired the three Democrats on the five-member commission in May. They were 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 three liberal justices dissented.
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.
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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