The U.S. Supreme Court has just taken a major step toward endorsing a broad view of executive power that was first championed by former President Franklin D. Roosevelt and is now championed by President Donald Trump.
In an unsigned order issued Thursday in Trump v. Wilcox, the Supreme Court lifted a lower court order that blocked Trump from removing Gywnne Wilcox from her position as a member of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). In so doing, a majority of the Supreme Court not only allowed Trump's firing of the Joe Biden appointee to go into effect; the Court also signaled that the New Deal era precedent which strictly limits the president's power to fire "independent" agency heads such as Wilcox is facing impending legal doom.
To understand the importance of Trump v. Wilcox, it is necessary to first understand the importance of Humphrey's Executor v. United States (1935). William Humphrey was a commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) appointed in 1925 by President Calvin Coolidge. In 1933, with the New Deal in full swing, FDR demanded Humphrey's resignation. "I do not feel that your mind and my mind go along together on either the policies or the administering of the Federal Trade Commission," Roosevelt wrote to Humphrey, "and frankly, I think it is best for the people of this country that I should have full confidence."
