The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that President Donald Trump has the authority to fire two Democrat-appointed agency figures over the dissent of the high court’s three liberal justices.
The emergency order overturns a lower court ruling that had reinstated the two officials, delivering a victory for the president in his effort to expand authority over all facets of the federal bureaucracy.
However, the justices declined the Trump administration’s request to fast-track the case and fully review it this term, postponing a decision on whether the president has the authority to dismiss the two officials permanently, The Hill reported.
Instead, the challenge brought by National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) member Gwynne Wilcox and Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) member Cathy Harris will proceed through the standard process in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. In the meantime, both agencies remain without the quorum needed to carry out certain official functions.
“The stay also reflects our judgment that the Government faces greater risk of harm from an order allowing a removed officer to continue exercising the executive power than a wrongfully removed officer faces from being unable to perform her statutory duty,” the court wrote in its opinion.
The decision reflects concern over the timeline outlined by Solicitor General D. John Sauer, who cautioned that following the standard legal process could delay a final resolution until well into President Trump’s term in office.
“Forcing the President to entrust his executive power to respondents for the months or years that it could take the courts to resolve this litigation would manifestly cause irreparable harm to the President and to the separation of powers,” Sauer wrote in his filings with the high court, The Hill noted
