Supreme court allows Trump to remove 3 democrats on the consumer product safety commission
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. US 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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Al Arabiya
3 hours ago
- Al Arabiya
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Thousands of Office of Justice Programs grants are under review, the official said, and are being evaluated, among other things, on how well they support law enforcement and combat violent crime. The majority of CVI grants were originally funded through the 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act and part of a push by former President Joe Biden to stem the rise of gun violence in America, including establishing the first White House Office for Gun Violence Prevention. That office was 'dismantled on day one' of Trump taking office, said former deputy director of the office, Greg Jackson. Prior to the Biden-era funding, most gun violence prevention programs were funded on the state level. 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Gun violence deaths in the US grew more than 50 percent from 2015 to the pandemic-era peak of 21,383 in 2021, according to the Gun Violence Archive. Since then, deadly shootings have been in decline, falling to 16,725 in 2024, which is more in line with the pre-pandemic trend. As of May 2025, deaths are down 866 from the same period last year. Defunded programs While cities like New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles received the bulk of gun violence prevention funding, southern cities like Memphis, Selma, Alabama and Baton Rouge, Louisiana also received millions and were more reliant on the grants due to limited state support for the programs, experts told Reuters. 'Very few state legislatures are passing funding right now, that's why the federal cuts were such a tragic hit,' said Amber Goodwin, co-founder of Community Violence Legal Network, who's part of a coalition of lawyers working to get grants reinstated. Nearly a dozen interviews with legal experts, gun violence interventionists, and former DOJ officials said funding cuts threaten the long-term sustainability of community violence intervention initiatives that have taken years to establish and are embedded in predominantly Black and Latino communities. Pha'Tal Perkins founded Think Outside Da Block in 2016, a nonprofit based in Chicago's violence-plagued Englewood neighborhood. Federal funding allowed him to hire full-time staff, but when grants were stripped, he was forced to lay off five team members. 'Being able to have outreach teams at specific places at the right time to have conversations before things get out of hand is what people don't see,' Perkins said. The programs initiated in 2022 marked the first time grassroots organizations could apply for federal community violence prevention funding directly, without going through law enforcement or state intermediaries, according to three former DOJ officials. 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Arab News
4 hours ago
- Arab News
Indonesia to cut Middle East oil imports to meet Trump's tariff deal
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Al Arabiya
4 hours ago
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Trump calls NY shooting ‘senseless' violence by ‘crazed lunatic'
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