WASHINGTON (CN) — President Donald Trump called on the Supreme Court for help bringing the executive branch to heel on Wednesday, asking the justices to block the reinstatement of independent officials atop the National Labor Relations Board and the Merit Systems Protection Board.
“The president should not be forced to delegate his executive power to agency heads who are demonstrably at odds with the administration’s policy objectives for a single day — much less for the months that it would likely take for the courts to resolve this litigation,” U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer wrote.
The Merit Systems Protection Board reviews disputes from federal workers, while the National Labor Relations Board resolves hundreds of unfair labor practice cases every year. Trump fired Merit Systems Protection Board Chair Cathy Harris and National Labor Relations Board member Gwynne Wilcox for acting against his policies.
On Monday, the D.C. Circuit reinstated Harris and Wilcox, finding that Supreme Court precedent limits at-will termination of independent board members.
Embracing a broad version of the unitary executive theory, Trump claims unrestricted removal power over the executive branch. The Justice Department pushed for urgent action to ensure Trump can exercise this authority, calling for an immediate freeze — known as an administrative stay — while the court considers the application. The government asked the justices to take the rare step of treating his application as a petition for certiorari before judgment, taking up the merits of the appeal before the lower courts.
“The prudent exercise of equitable discretion requires, at a minimum, that the president’s removal decisions remain in effect while litigation remains ongoing,” Sauer wrote.
Harris, a gay woman, was confirmed to the Merit Systems Protection Board in 2022 and elevated as chair in March 2024. Before joining the board, she worked on sexual harassment and LGBTQ rights cases and was an assistant district attorney for the New York County District Attorney’s Office.
Harris sued Trump and other administration officials after being fired in an email in February claiming that her removal violated statutory tenure protections.
Wilcox, the first Black woman to serve on the National Labor Relations Board and as its chair, was similarly fired in an email. A week after taking office, Trump terminated Wilcox, stating that he needed a board of his choosing to carry out the administration’s policies.
Wilcox also sued the president and other administration officials for violating her statutory tenure protection.
Both Wilcox and Harris prevailed at the lower court, but a panel on the D.C. Circuit paused their reinstatements. However, the court reversed en banc, calling for the reinstatement of Wilcox and Harris.
Their decision relied on two landmark Supreme Court cases, Humphrey’s Executor v. United States and Wiener v. United States, which limit the president’s ability to remove officials on multi-member adjudicatory boards like the two in question.
For-cause removal protections shield independent board members like Harris and Wilcox from political interference. Members are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, but Humphrey’s Executor and Wiener determined they can only be fired for misconduct — not because their decisions aren’t favorable to the current administration.
Over the last decade, however, the Roberts court limited both precedents in Seila Law v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Collins v. Yellen. Instead of insulating independent board members, the Supreme Court has shifted authority back to the president.
In February, Attorney General Pam Bondi informed lawmakers that the administration no longer believed Humphrey’s Executor to be good law. Trump said he intends to ask the high court to overturn the landmark precedent if the justices review the merits of his appeal.
“To the extent Humphrey’s Executor requires upholding tenure protections for agencies such as the NLRB and MSPB, the government intends to ask this Court to hold, after receiving full briefing and argument, that Humphrey’s Executor was wrongly decided, is not entitled to stare decisis effect, and should be overruled,” Sauer wrote.
Since the case came to the court in an emergency posture, however, the Justice Department said a narrow reading of Humphrey’s Executor still allowed Trump to remove the agency heads at issue here.
Regardless of the justices’ reading of Humphrey’s Executor, Trump said the precedent has never allowed courts to reinstate removed executive officers.
“Permitting judicial reinstatement orders would involve a substantial extension of Humphrey’s Executor, which involved only back pay,” Sauer wrote. “A back-pay order requires the executive branch only to pay a sum of money; a reinstatement order, by contrast, compels the president to entrust his executive power to someone he has fired.”
The Supreme Court did not immediately respond to the president’s application.