Supreme Court Issues Order Staying Reinstatement
In an emergency appeal filed with the US Supreme Court, the Department of Justice requested the Court to approve a stay of judgments of the District Court of the District of Columbia. The lower-court orders were blocking President Trump from firing National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) member Gwynne Wilcox and Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) member Cathy Harris.
Shortly after the emergency appeal was filed, Chief Justice John Roberts issued an administrative stay. The result is to put the lower-court orders on hold while the justices consider the government’s request, and ordered a response by 5 p.m. on Tuesday, April 15th by 5 pm.
Argument of DOJ in Emergency Appeal
D. John Sauer, the solicitor general for the Department of Justice, argued the dispute “raises a constitutional question of profound importance: whether the President can supervise and control agency heads who exercise vast executive power on the President’s behalf, or whether Congress may insulate those agency heads from presidential control by preventing the President from removing them at will.”
Congress has passed laws barring presidents from removing the board members who run most independent agencies unless they commit certain types of misconduct. The Trump administration argues that these limitations are unconstitutional because they infringe on the president’s authority to control the executive branch.
The request from the solicitor general asked the justices to set aside orders from U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras and Senior U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell while the Trump administration appeals the cases.
What Led to Emergency Appeal
Cathy Harris was appointed to the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) in 2022 by former President Joe Biden. Her term would have expired in 2028. She became the MSPB chair in 2024.
She was fired by President Trump in February and was reinstated to her position after U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras issued an injunction on March 4th. He had concluded she could only be removed from office “for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.”
Gwynne Wilcox was appointed to the National Labor Relations Board in 2021 by former President Biden, and then appointed to a second term in 2023. The full DC Circuit Court ordered her reinstated.
The emergency appeal to the Supreme Court contended:
Judicial intervention has…thrown the NLRB’s and MSPB’s operations into chaos, cast a cloud on the lawfulness of the agencies’ actions, left the President and Senate uncertain about whether and when they may install new officers to succeed respondents, and undermined “the steady administration of the laws” that Article II (of the US Constitution) seeks to secure.
Summary
This Order from the Supreme Court does not resolve the issue of whether the members of the MSPB and NLRB fired by President Trump will remain fired or will be reinstated. It does indicate the Supreme Court is now involved and will likely determine a number of issues regarding Trump administration attempts to “optimize” the federal bureaucracy.
Among the issues that may eventually be addressed are whether district courts can issue decisions imposing a nationwide restraining order. Judges in different jurisdictions have been making this type of decision, particularly since Donald Trump’s second term of office has been underway.
In a press briefing on February 12, 2025, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt criticized judges whose rulings blocked parts of President Donald Trump’s agenda, describing them as “judicial activists” and suggesting their actions amounted to a “constitutional crisis.”
During the briefing, Leavitt stated, “We believe these judges are acting as judicial activists rather than honest arbiters of the law.” She further asserted, “the real constitutional crisis is taking place within our judicial branch.”
Whether the Supreme Court will take on this issue remains to be seen.
In the meantime, the work of the MSPB and the NLRB will be slowed until the challenges to the removals have been resolved, and they are either reinstated or remain fired, and new appointees take their place.
