The member of the Board of Directors of Merit Systems Protection, Cathy Harris (left), and the member of the National Board of Labor Relations, Gwynne Wilcox (right), were dismissed by President Trump earlier this year.
Mike Scarcella / Reuters; FM Archive / Alamy Stock Photo
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Mike Scarcella / Reuters; FM Archive / Alamy Stock Photo
The judges of appeal in Washington, DC, will examine a key question on Friday: the president has the constitutional power to dismiss the members of the board of directors of the agencies created by the congress to be independent of the White House?
More specifically, did President Trump overtake when he withdrew Gwynne Wilcox, member of the National Labor Relations Board, and the member of the board of directors of Merit Systems Protection Cathy Harris of their positions without reason?
Already, the judges of the lower courts said yes, quoting a decision of the Supreme Court of 1935 called Humphrey’s executor This limits the congress that the Congress has put the president’s dismissal powers. The judges ordered that Wilcox and Harris be temporarily returned to their seats.
But the Trump administration called on these decisions, arguing that the judges of the lower court made an error in their interpretation of this 1935 decision and that they exceeded their authority to order the reintegration. After a few round trips involving emergency requests to the DC Court of Appeals circuit, the Supreme Court intervened on April 9, chief judge John Roberts made a prescription for Wilcox and Harris to withdraw until the substance of their affairs can be examined.
Of the three judges of the DC circuit court which will hear these arguments of merit on Friday, two are named by Trump who – in this case and a link – supported the position of the government according to which the Constitution gives Trump the power to control the executive branch as it seems. The third judge, a man named Biden, sees him differently.
Independence of the agency at stake
The stake in this case is not only the jobs of Wilcox and Harris, but the jobs of people that Trump has dismissed elsewhere in the same way, including the Federal Trade Commission and the Committee on Equality Employment.
The congress created these “independent agencies” with certain protections of the political interference written in the law. They are led by advice or commissions whose members are appointed by the presidents and confirmed by the Senate.
The congress required that these councils or commissions be bipartite, the democratic and republican members serving staggered terms. According to the law, the president cannot dismiss members for cause, such as the negligence of duty or embezzlement.
Now, the Trump administration says that these restrictions are unconstitutional, while the congress has been largely silent on the issue.
“Article II of the American Constitution constitutes the whole of the executive power in a single president, who alone is responsible for the people,” Trump wrote in his letter to Wilcox, putting it at the end.
Wilcox and Harris warned that a decision in favor of the president would put the independence of other government commissions, including the federal reserve, in danger. If the court concludes that Trump has the constitutional power to shoot them, he warns, then nothing will obstruct its dismissal president Jerome Powell, something that Trump threatened but recently said that he had “no intention” to do.
The Trump administration has tried to repress these fears, by writing in court documents that the Federal Reserve is “a unique institution with a history and unique experience”, which gives it a degree of insulation of presidential control.
“It does not hold,” Harris’ lawyers wrote in their response. “There is no coherent way to create a” exceptional federal reserve “which of the huts of the destructive effects of government theory.”
Competing interpretations of the Constitution
Wilcox and Harris argued that the overthrow Humphrey’s executor would create chaos. The Trump administration maintains that it is not trying to overthrow the preceding legal.
Government lawyers have rather argued that Humphrey’s executor Does not apply to Wilcox and Harris taking into account the “substantial executive power” that their agencies have today – the power of the Trump administration says that the Supreme Court has not envisaged 90 years ago.
The way in which lawyers of the Trump administration describe it: the Constitution constitutes an executive power – all this – to the president. A court cannot force the president to keep someone in whom he does not trust to carry out his policies, they say.
“Agency leaders in the executive branch must share the objectives of my administration and their commitment to serve the will of the American people,” Trump wrote in his letter to Wilcox.
Wilcox lawyers call this a new aggressive interpretation of the Constitution. They argued that the powers of the National Labor Relations Relations – which include hearing Calls on labor disputes, the issuance of appeals and the creation of rules relating to the way in which the federal labor law is concluded – are not as large as the government renders it, noting that the Council must be in court for its decisions to apply.
Harris lawyers, for their part, accuse that the government are trying to restrict Humphrey’s executor “Into oblivion” by arguing that it does not apply to the Merit Systems Protection Board, which hears complaints related to employment filed by federal workers against their agencies.
“If this council is not constitutional under Humphrey’s executorNothing is: “They write.
