The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that former President Donald Trump may remove President Joe Biden’s appointees to the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) without providing a specific reason—at least for now.
This decision represents a shift away from long-standing legal protections designed to shield independent regulatory agencies from direct political influence. The ruling follows the Court’s earlier support for expanded executive authority in similar cases involving other federal agencies.
According to NPR, the Court concluded that the CPSC exercises executive power similar to that of other agencies like the National Labor Relations Board. Therefore, the president may have broader authority to make personnel decisions regarding its leadership.
In a concurring opinion, Justice Brett Kavanaugh noted that he would have preferred the case be reviewed more thoroughly during the Court’s next term.
However, the Court’s three liberal justices—Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson—disagreed with the ruling. In a joint dissent, they expressed concern about the use of the Court’s emergency docket to address such a significant constitutional question. Justice Kagan wrote that the decision could gradually shift power away from Congress and into the executive branch.
“This Court may enable the gradual transfer of authority, piece by piece, from one branch of Government to another,” she wrote, cautioning against bypassing traditional deliberative processes.
While the ruling is not final, it directly challenges the 1935 decision in Humphrey’s Executor, a landmark case that limited the president’s power to dismiss officials from independent agencies without cause. In that case, the Court ruled unanimously that President Franklin Roosevelt could not remove a commissioner from the Federal Trade Commission simply for opposing his policies.
In this current dispute, President Biden appointed three commissioners to the CPSC in 2021. The CPSC oversees consumer safety standards, investigates product hazards, and manages recalls.
The commissioners filed a lawsuit after being dismissed by President Trump before the end of their terms. They argued that CPSC leadership should be protected from removal without cause, citing the agency’s status as an independent body.
A federal judge in Maryland initially sided with the commissioners, ordering their temporary reinstatement. When the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals declined to intervene, the Trump administration appealed to the Supreme Court.
The high court’s recent ruling allows the administration to proceed with the removals while the legal case continues in the lower courts.
The long-term impact of this decision remains to be seen, but legal experts suggest it could reshape how presidents interact with independent federal agencies going forward.
