Donald Trump got the green light to do something Congress specifically tried to stop him from doing

The Supreme Court has made a significant decision allowing President Donald Trump to remove three Democratic members from the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). This ruling was made with a 6-3 vote, with all liberal justices opposing the decision.

According to Politico, the CPSC is responsible for setting safety standards for more than 15,000 products that Americans buy and use. The three Biden-appointed members, Mary Boyle, Alexander Hoehn-Saric, and Richard Trumka, can now be fired by Trump without any proof of wrongdoing or failure to do their jobs.

Trump got the green light to do something Congress specifically tried to stop him from doing, continuing his pattern of expanding presidential power beyond traditional limits, as these positions were originally designed to be protected from political interference. The law that created the commission included special rules to prevent commissioners from being fired for political reasons.

Supreme Court’s decision raises concerns about agency independence

Justice Elena Kagan, writing for the dissenting opinion, strongly criticized this decision. She said that by letting the President remove commissioners simply because of their party membership, the court has gone against Congress’s original plan to keep the agency independent and politically balanced.

This case follows a similar pattern to a ruling from May 2023, where the Supreme Court allowed Trump to fire members of two labor-related federal boards. The court’s majority briefly scolded lower courts for not following that earlier decision, even though it was an emergency ruling that normally wouldn’t set a binding precedent.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, while agreeing with the majority, suggested that the Supreme Court should have taken more time to fully consider these cases. He mentioned that the court should have scheduled complete legal arguments about whether the president can fire agency board members without cause.

The decision has created uncertainty about a 1935 Supreme Court ruling called Humphreys Executor, as Trump continues to reshape government institutions, which had supported limits on presidential power to fire regulators. While this old decision is still technically valid, the court’s recent emergency rulings suggest that most justices might want to move away from it. This latest ruling continues to expand presidential control over federal agencies that Congress tried to keep independent.