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If the case reaches the Supreme Court, its conservative majority will be receptive to Donald J. Trump’s argument that presidents have unlimited power to remove members of independent agencies.
Feb. 6, 2025, 11:36 a.m. ET
When Gwynne A. Wilcox sued President Trump on Wednesday over her firing from the National Labor Relations Board, her lawsuit included an unusually candid statement. Ms. Wilcox knew, she said, that Mr. Trump was hoping she would take him to court.
“The president’s action against Ms. Wilcox is part of a string of openly illegal firings in the early days of the second Trump administration that are apparently designed to test Congress’s power to create independent agencies like the board,” her lawyers wrote, adding that she “has no desire to aid the president in establishing a test case.”
The alternative, the suit said, was even less attractive: surrender.
Ms. Wilcox is right to be wary. If the case reaches the Supreme Court, as is likely, the court’s conservative majority will be receptive to Mr. Trump’s argument that presidents have unlimited power to remove members of independent agencies. Such a ruling would accomplish a major goal of the Trump administration and the conservative legal movement: to place what they call the administrative state under the complete control of the president.
A foundational precedent from 1935, which ruled that Congress can shield independent agencies from politics, stands in the way of that project. But some conservative justices have been itching to overrule the precedent, Humphrey’s Executor v. United States.
The new case may give them a chance to do so, said Jonathan H. Adler, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University.
“This litigation squarely presents the question of whether independent agencies can remain independent,” he said. “It’s arguably a gift to the administration.”
