Justices: Consumer Safety firings allowed
By: Maureen Groppe
USA Today
WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump can fire three Democratic members of the Consumer Product Safety Commission for now, the Supreme Court said July 23 [2025] in the latest decision boosting the ability of the president to control independent agencies.
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The ruling was made over the objections of the court's three liberal justices.
..... "Once again, this Court uses its emergency docket to destroy the independence of an independent agency, as established by Congress," Justice Elena Kagan wrote. "By means of such actions, this Court may facilitate the permanent transfer of authroity, piece by piece by piece, from one brach of Government to another."
..... The Five-member regulatory commission, cerated by Congress in 1972, aims to keep people from being injured or killed by defective or harmful products.
..... Commissioners are appointed by the president and confirmed by the senate in staggered seven-year terms to protect them from political or industry pressure and to protect the agency from abrupt changes in composition.
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By law, commissioners can be removed only for "neglect of duty or malfeasance in office."
..... But in May, [2025] Trump fried without cause the three members appointed by President Joe Biden: Mary Boyle, Alexander Hoehn-Saric and Richard Turmka Jr.
..... A federal judge in Maryland ordered the commissioners reinstated, saying the threat to public safety from removing them outweigh any hardship the administration might suffer form keeping then on while the firings are bing challenged.
..... In his June [2025] ruling, U.S. District Judge Matthew Maddox also said the product safety commission is similar in structurer and function to antihero independent agency that was the center of a landmark 1935 ruling - Humphrey's Executor v. United States - limiting the ability of the president to remove independent agency officials.
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"Humphrey's Executor remains good law and is binding on this Court," Maddox wrote.
..... But the Trump administration said Maddox instead should've taken his cue from the Supreme Court's May [2025] decision allowing the president to fire Democratic members of two federal labor boards, while the former members challenge their dismissals.
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A majority of the Supreme Court agreed. In a brief and unsigned opinion, the majority said the situations were similar. There;s greater risk of harm in allowing the commissioners to continue to serve after Trump fried them than the potential harm of eventing a wrongfully removed officer from continuing to serve, the majority said.
..... In a concurring opinion, Justice Brett Kavanaugh said there's"at least a fair prospect" that the court will overturn the 1935 ruling.
..... Because of that, Kavanaugh said, he would have preferred for the court to take up that underlying issue now, before it;s worked its way through the lower courts.
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In the past week, judges have reinstated members of the National Credit Union Administration and of the Federal trade Commission who were fired by Trump.