Supreme Court lets Trump fire federal product safety commissioners, liberal justices dissent

The Hill

23-07-2025

The Supreme Court on Wednesday paved the way for President Trump to fire three members of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) — the second time the justices have allowed Trump's terminations at independent agencies to go into effect.
The emergency order lifts a lower court's ruling that determined the firings were unlawful and effectively ordered the reinstatement of commissioners Mary Boyle, Alexander Hoehn-Saric and Richard Trumka Jr. as the litigation progresses.
The majority pointed to its May emergency ruling greenlighting Trump firing members of two other independent agencies, saying the CPSC did not differ in 'any pertinent respect.'
'Although our interim orders are not conclusive as to the merits, they inform how a court should exercise its equitable discretion in like cases,' the unsigned order reads.
The three justices appointed by Democratic presidents publicly dissented, saying their colleagues had 'negated Congress's choice of agency bipartisanship and independence.'
'By means of such actions, this Court may facilitate the permanent transfer of authority, piece by piece by piece, from one branch of Government to another. Respectfully, I dissent,' wrote Justice Elena Kagan, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
The decision marks an immediate victory for the Trump administration, which has looked to vastly expand executive power since Trump returned to the White House.
The administration has sought to eviscerate removal protections for members of independent agencies throughout the government, pushing back on a 90-year-old Supreme Court precedent that cleared the way for Congress to establish those protections.
The new order marks the second time the justices have intervened to permit Trump's firings of independent agency leaders. In May, the justices cleared the way for Trump to fire National Labor Relations Board member Gwynne Wilcox and Merit Systems Protection Board member Cathy Harris.
Solicitor General D. John Sauer said lower courts still haven't gotten the message, including when U.S. District Judge Matthew Maddox later blocked Trump's termination of the three CPSC members.
Sauer urged the Supreme Court to firmly settle the issue by leapfrogging the lower courts to take up the CPSC case on their normal docket.
'This case illustrates that the sooner this Court resolves the merits of this application and decides foundational questions about the scope of the President's removal authority, the better,' Sauer wrote in the application.
The majority declined to do so, instead sending the case back to the lower courts.
But Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Trump's second appointee to the court, said he would've taken that additional step. He warned his colleagues may leave 'extended uncertainty and confusion' about whether the court will overrule the precedent.
'Moreover, when the question is whether to narrow or overrule one of this Court's precedents rather than how to resolve an open or disputed question of federal law, further percolation in the lower courts is not particularly useful,' Kavanaugh wrote.
The CPSC commissioners, appointed by former President Biden, were let go earlier this year. Trump did not purport to have cause to fire them, despite federal law providing independent agencies across the federal bureaucracy with for-cause removal protections.
CPSC commissioners cannot be fired by the president except for 'neglect of duty or malfeasance in office' under federal law. Similar setups exist for a handful of other agencies, providing a degree of independence from the political impulses of the White House.
The commissioners, represented by consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, urged the justices to stay out of the case.
'The government now asks this Court to disrupt the status quo and enter a stay that would prevent the Commissioners from serving in the roles that the district court held they are entitled to occupy and that they have in fact been occupying for the last month. The government cannot establish its entitlement to this extraordinary relief,' the group's attorneys wrote in court filings.