Supreme Court says Trump can fire government employees

 Daily Signal:

If the Supreme Court wants to correct one of the worst decisions of the progressive era, one that violated basic separation of powers principles and vitiated the constitutional authority of the president as head of the executive branch, it will finally overturn Humphrey’s Executor v. U.S. after 90 years of poisoning the government well.

If you’ve never heard of the case, don’t be embarrassed. Most people, aside from government wonks and constitutional nerds, haven’t. However, it’s finally being brought to the fore because of President Donald Trump’s firing of government officials at so-called independent agencies, and it’s about time.

The Supreme Court just issued a temporary stay of lower court orders in Trump v. Slaughter that told Trump he couldn’t fire Rebecca Slaughter, a commissioner on the Federal Trade Commission. This followed other recent cases in which the justices stayed lower court decisions banning Trump from firing officials such as Gwynne Wilcox and Cathy Harris from the National Labor Relations Board and the Merit Systems Protection Board, respectively.

All of these government officials sued, claiming Trump lacked the authority to fire them. They relied on Humphrey’s Executor, which appears to be on life support. So, what was that case all about and why is it still important today?

We have such a huge administrative state today because Congress started creating “independent” federal agencies to carry out the functions of the executive branch, including the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, the National Labor Relations Board, and the Federal Election Commission, where I once served as a commissioner.

This began with former President Woodrow Wilson and accelerated with former President Franklin D. Roosevelt. They, like other progressives, thought federal bureaucrats, or so-called experts, should be free of the political process and political interference to implement public policy, no matter who is in the White House.

As a result, when Congress created these agencies, it limited the president’s ability. Presidents can nominate the commissioners who head such agencies with the advice and consent of the Senate, but the statutes setting them up usually limit the president’s ability to remove them once they’ve been confirmed, except for cause.
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Will the court take the final step and overturn Humphrey’s Executor? It should, and hopefully it will when these cases finally get to the Supreme Court, giving justices the opportunity to correct the mistake the court made almost a century ago.
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The Supreme Court should overturn Executor.  Trump should be allowed to put his team in place.