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In a swift move on Wednesday, the Trump administration petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court for an emergency order to remove two labor board members from their posts. This step marks the latest escalation in a constitutional debate over presidential control of independent agencies.
Reviving a Longstanding Power Struggle
The legal scramble follows a ruling from the DC Circuit Court of Appeals earlier this week that temporarily reinstated two officials—Gwynne Wilcox of the National Labor Relations Board and Cathy Harris, head of the Merit Systems Protection Board. Both had previously been dismissed by the Trump administration.
These agencies play key roles in shaping federal labor policy and overseeing employment disputes. Their reappointment allows the bodies to resume full operations after lacking a quorum.
At the heart of the issue is a 90-year-old precedent known as Humphrey’s Executor. That 1935 Supreme Court ruling determined that presidents cannot remove members of independent boards without legitimate cause.
Conservative legal scholars have long criticized the ruling, claiming it limits executive authority. The current conservative-leaning Supreme Court has already trimmed the scope of that decision in a 2020 case, signaling potential openness to further change.
In Wednesday’s emergency filing, the Trump administration asked the high court to step in and reverse the appeals court’s decision. It also requested the justices take up the broader constitutional question behind the case.
“The president should not be forced to delegate his executive power to agency heads who are demonstrably at odds with the administration’s policy objectives for a single day – much less for the months that it would likely take for the courts to resolve this litigation,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote in the appeal.
Courtrooms as Battlegrounds for Executive Power
The administration’s legal team argues that allowing Congress to shield agency leaders from presidential removal undercuts the president’s constitutional role.
“This case raises a constitutional question of profound importance: whether the president can supervise and control agency heads who exercise vast executive power on the president’s behalf, or whether Congress may insulate those agency heads from presidential control by preventing the President from removing them at will,” Sauer added.
Initially, a three-judge panel of the DC Circuit sided with the Trump administration, supporting the removals. However, that decision was overturned when the full appellate court voted 7-4 in favor of reinstating the officials.
All judges who supported bringing Wilcox and Harris back to their posts were appointed by Democratic presidents. The four dissenting votes came from Republican-appointed judges.
With their return, both the NLRB and MSPB regained a quorum, enabling them to move forward with pending cases. These agencies are seen as a key obstacle to Trump’s push to slash the federal workforce and remove large numbers of government employees.
One of the dissenting voices, US Circuit Judge Justin Walker—appointed by Trump—argued that the president’s authority should not be so constrained.
“The Supreme Court has said that Congress cannot restrict the president’s removal authority over agencies that ‘wield substantial executive power,” Walker wrote.
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