Washington
CNN
—
Two former top federal labor protection officials were reinstated to their posts Monday by the full DC Circuit Court of Appeals – at least for now – amid a lengthy legal dispute over President Donald Trump’s ability to fire leaders from independent government agencies.
In a 7-4 decision, the full appeals court wiped away a previous ruling from a three-judge panel that allowed Trump to fire the officials: Cathy Harris, the chairwoman of the Merit Systems Protection Board, which reviews federal firings and can reinstate wrongly terminated employees, and Gwynne Wilcox, a member of the National Labor Relations Board.
With these two officials returning to their posts, a quorum has now been restored at the NLRB and MSPB, allowing them to function at full strength and process cases involving federal employment disputes. These agencies are a critical bulwark against Trump’s efforts to rapidly reduce the size of the federal workforce and fire thousands of employees.
Both officials are Democrats appointed by former President Joe Biden whose statutory terms weren’t set to expire for years. Federal law says they can only be dismissed for cause, but Trump is trying to fire them anyway, and the Justice Department has argued that it’s unconstitutional to restrain the president’s firing powers.
This is not the final say in the matter, which many legal observers believe is eventually headed to the Supreme Court.
The full DC Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday wiped away an emergency order from the three-judge panel letting Trump fire the officials while the appeals play out. But a smaller three-judge panel is still set to review the underlying merits of the case, and a hearing is scheduled for May 16.
“The Supreme Court has repeatedly told the courts of appeals to follow extant Supreme Court precedent unless and until that Court itself changes it or overturns it,” the DC Circuit majority wrote in its ruling Monday.
Previous Supreme Court rulings about presidential firing powers, which the Trump administration wants to overturn, “remain good law” and are still “in place,” the judges wrote, citing earlier cases.
All seven of the DC Circuit judges who supported reinstating the labor officials were appointed by Democratic presidents, and the four dissenting judges who opposed it were appointed by Republicans.
CNN has reached out to the MSPB and NLRB for comment.
Both women challenged their firings in court, and trial judges concluded that their terminations were unlawful. The Justice Department then appealed those decisions and later secured a court order letting Trump fire the officials on a temporary basis while the appealed played out. That temporary order was vacated Monday, reinstating the officials.
