Supreme Court allows Trump to say youre fired to meddling bureaucrats
On Monday, Donald Trump sealed one of the most lasting parts of his legacy.In Trump v.
Slaughter, the Court reaffirmed and reinforced the authority of presidents to determine who will carry out the functions of the Executive Branch.In so doing, the Court overruled one of the long-standing limits of presidential power in Humphrey’s Executor v.
United States.Humphrey’s Executor is hardly a household name.Yet the demise of the 1935 case represents a seismic shift in the balance of power within our constitutional system.In this case, the court decided that President Trump had the right to fire Rebecca Slaughter, a commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission.For decades, scholars and jurists have questioned where the Court found the authority for Congress to create a hybrid creature like the FTC — part legislative and part executive, with officials protected from removal by a president.Various presidents have chafed at this limiting doctrine.
But Trump pushed aggressively against the precedent and appointed three justices who would prove critical in ending Humphrey’s Executor after more than 90 years.In a separate case, Trump v.Cook, the Court ruled that the president could not fire Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors.Both the win and the loss were vintage Trump.
The win because he was unrelenting in his assertion of inherent powers.The loss in part because he is equally unrelenting in his use of social media to carry out policy.Chief Justice Roberts wrote that more than a tweet and conclusory letter is demanded in such a removal from the Federal Reserve, which has always held a unique position in the government and prior cases.Roberts wrote, “would in effect transform the Federal Reserve’s for-cause protection into at-will employment — an interpretive leap out of step with the statute Congress enacted and our Nation’s tradition of central banking protected from political interference.”That does not mean that Cook cann...