As the Supreme Courts Leans into Single Party Rule

 

As the Supreme Courts Leans into Single Party Rule

And Reversing almost a Century of Precedents

“So, having a President come in and fire all the scientists and the doctors and the economists and the PhDs and replacing them with loyalists and people who don’t know anything is actually not in the best interest of the citizens of the United States.” 

Likely dissenting Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, during oral arguments, December 8th.

Here is the 1935 Supreme Court case that the Trump administration wants reversed : Humphrey's Executor vs US. Here is a summary of that case: “President Hoover appointed, and the Senate confirmed, Humphrey as a commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). In 1933, President Roosevelt asked for Humphrey's resignation since the latter was a conservative and had jurisdiction over many of Roosevelt's New Deal policies. When Humphrey refused to resign, Roosevelt fired him because of his policy positions. However, the FTC Act only allowed a president to remove a commissioner for ‘inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.’ Since Humphrey died shortly after being dismissed, his executor sued to recover Humphrey's lost salary… The unanimous Court found that the FTC Act was constitutional and that Humphrey's dismissal on policy grounds was unjustified. The Court reasoned that the Constitution had never given ‘illimitable power of removal’ to the president.” Oyez.org.

Writing for the December 8th Associated Press, Mark Sherman grapples with how a president can ignore the very statutes that have created virtually every federal administrative state in well over a century: “No president before Trump has sought to wrest control of the agencies that regulate wide swaths of American life, including nuclear energy, product safety and labor relations. But the six conservatives, including three appointed by Trump, seemed more concerned about issuing a ruling that would endure than handing too much power to Trump.

“Their rhetoric was reminiscent of the presidential immunity case in 2024 that allowed Trump to avoid prosecution for his efforts to undo the 2020 election results. The court is writing a decision ‘for the ages,’ Justice Neil Gorsuch said then.

“Solicitor General D. John Sauer, who argued the immunity case for Trump, defended the president's decision to fire Federal Trade Commission member Rebecca Slaughter without cause and called on the court to jettison Humphrey's Executor… Members of the National Labor Relations Board, the Merit Systems Protection Board and the Consumer Product Safety Commission also have been fired by Trump.

“The only officials who have so far survived efforts to remove them are Lisa Cook, a Federal Reserve governor, and Shira Perlmutter, a copyright official with the Library of Congress. The court has suggested that it will view the Fed differently from other independent agencies, and Trump has said he wants her out because of allegations of mortgage fraud. Cook says she did nothing wrong… A second question in the Slaughter case could affect Cook. Even if a firing turns out to be illegal, the court wants to decide whether judges have the power to reinstate someone.”

Having issued presidential immunity in the 2024 ruling in Trump vs US – absolute when the president is acting directly in his official capacity and qualified is there is a colorable relationship to official duties – the Supreme Court seems hell-bent on reassembling the administrative state, as a litany of rulings during the Trump have shown. In that immunity decision, Roberts included the power to fire among the president’s “conclusive and preclusive” powers that Congress lacks the authority to restrict.

Unlikely to depoliticize the drawing of congressional districting any time soon, and quite willing to override congressional, civil service and even union mandates that hem in presidential power, the Court seems willing to keep an agency independent only where the structure creates a very separate, board-run entity for the expressed purpose of limiting presidential discretion, where stability and consistency are of the essence of such unique agencies. Like the Federal Reserve. Hands off the “executive branch”!!!

The feared result of all this, expected in June, is most crass and fundamental cronyism, where loyalty and, for the mega-rich, well-placed donations, dictate policy… where those without money are simply squeezed out. Trump’s track record on this speaks, yells, for itself. But the Supreme Court seems determined to redefine our government, from top to bottom. Ballroom, anyone?

I’m Peter Dekom, and we are rapidly devolving into one of the most corrupt constitutional democracies on Earth.