By Daniel Wiessner
The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to review an appeals court ruling allowing President Donald Trump to fire a Democratic member of a federal labor board, one day after handing the president broad powers to remove appointees at regulatory agencies.
The court's denial of a petition by Cathy Harris, a one-time chair of the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, was not surprising after Monday's 6-3 ruling involving a member of the Federal Trade Commission.
The court's conservative majority said that a law allowing FTC members to be removed only for inefficiency, neglect or malfeasance violated the U.S. Constitution. Merit board members are shielded by an identical law, which a Washington, D.C.-based federal appeals court said was invalid in December.
Harris was appealing that decision, which also upheld Trump's firing last year of Gwynne Wilcox, a Democratic member of the National Labor Relations Board. The merit board decides appeals by federal employees who have been disciplined or fired and the NLRB hears private-sector labor disputes.
The merit board could play a key role in Trump's efforts to reshape the federal government and shrink its workforce, as the agency is often the only recourse for government employees to challenge their termination.
Monday's Supreme Court ruling is likely to impact at least three other cases brought by officials Trump fired last year and, moving forward, give the White House more direct control over dozens of agencies that were designed to be insulated from politics.
Harris in a statement provided by her lawyers said that upholding her removal "eviscerates the Board and points a dagger at the heart of the non-partisan civil service."
"America is worse off today. History will not look kindly on the court's reversion to the partisan patronage systems of yesteryear," Harris said.
Trump's removal of Harris had paralyzed the three-member merit board, which already had a vacant seat, by depriving it of at least two members to decide individual cases. The U.S. Senate in October confirmed a Trump nominee to the board, restoring a quorum.
The board has received more than 20,000 appeals from federal employees since Trump's second term began, thousands more than it has typically received over the same period in the past.
The case is Harris v. Bessent, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 25-1110.
For Harris: Nathaniel Zelinsky of Washington Litigation Group
For the government: U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer
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