WASHINGTON–The Supreme Court has allowed President Trump temporarily remove the leaders of two independent agencies, which sets up a challenge to the legal principle that limits a president’s power to fire such officials, according to legal analysts.

The order did not give a vote count, which is typical in such emergency applications, but it did provide a two-page summary of the court’s reasoning, according to the New York Times. Justice Elena Kagan issued a written dissent, joined by the court’s other two liberals, Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, the report stated. 

The ruling comes in cases before the court  involving Cathy A. Harris, a  member of the Merit Systems Protection Board, and Gwynne A. Wilcox,  a member of the National Labor Relations Board, both of whom said they were fired without case. Both had been appointed by President Biden.

The ruling also comes as two fired members of the NCUA board, Democrats Todd Harper and Tanya Otsuka, have also filed a lawsuit seeking to have their firings overturned, arguing the move violated the Federal Credit Union Act.

‘Profound Importance’

In its emergency application April 9, the Trump administration said a question of “profound importance” is at stake: “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.”

What Majority Said

In the Supreme Court decision the majority wrote that Trump could remove officials who exercise power on his behalf “because the Constitution vests the executive power in the president.” 

The Times analysis stated the majority wrote that this authority was subject to only “narrow exceptions recognized by our precedents.”

In her dissent, Justice Kagan countered that the majority was chipping away at longstanding precedent that, stating  such decisions “forecloses both the president’s firings and the court’s decision to award emergency relief.” 

Kagan described the president as choosing “to take the law into his own hands” and added that with its decision, the majority effectively “blesses those deeds,” according to the Times. 

“Not since the 1950s (or even before) has a president, without a legitimate reason, tried to remove an officer from a classic independent agency,” Kagan wrote in her dissent.

In their filing Harper and Otsuka have argued they were removed without cause.

The Administration’s Argument

“Federal laws meant to insulate officials who run independent agencies from politics require the president to give a good reason for firing them,” the Times said. “Trump says that those limits are an unconstitutional check on the president’s power to control the executive branch and that he must be allowed to remove officials for any reason or no reason.”

According to the Times, the decision by the court will remain in place as the case moves through the lower courts, and, potentially, makes its way back up to the justices.

“The court’s order tees up a possible challenge to the independence of many agencies long thought to be protected by Congress,” the Times reported “However, the majority appeared to make an exception for the Federal Reserve Board. In its order, the court noted that although the agency leaders involved in the current case had argued that the case would implicate the constitutionality of for-cause removals of members of the Federal Reserve, the justices said they disagreed.”

Prior Ruling

In the cases concerning the two officials recently fired by Trump, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled last month by a 7-to-4 vote that the administration must temporally reinstate them while their appeals moved forward.

The appeals court ruling, which was unsigned, said the 1935 Supreme Court precedent, Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, barred the firings. Credit unions have pointed to the same precedent objecting to the firings of Harper and Otsuka.