Daniel Wiesner
Dec 5 (Reuters) – A U.S. appeals court said on Friday that President Donald Trump has the authority to fire Democratic members of two federal labor committees, a major victory for the Republican president in gaining control of an agency independent of the White House.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled 2-1 that federal law allows members of the National Labor Relations Board and the Merit Systems Protection Board to be removed from office solely for violating the U.S. Constitution.
The D.C. Circuit overturned separate rulings by two judges, reinstating Cathy Harris’ membership on the Merit Board and Gwynne Wilcox’s membership on the NLRB. The Supreme Court temporarily stayed the lower court ruling in May.
The National Labor Relations Board hears private-sector labor disputes, and the Merit Board adjudicates appeals from federal employees who have been disciplined or fired. Because the merit board is typically the only legal recourse for federal workers, it could play a key role in scrutinizing Trump’s efforts to purge the federal workforce.
Members of both agencies are appointed by the president, but federal law only allows removal for reasons such as inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance.
Trump fired Harris and Wilcox in January without such justification, the first time a president has fired members of either agency. He also ousted a number of other officials who typically keep their jobs in new administrations, including other committee members and the inspector general who oversees waste and corruption at various agencies.
The Trump administration has argued that the law protecting officials from removal from office infringes on the broad powers the U.S. Constitution gives the president to control the executive branch.
The ouster of Harris and Wilcox paralyzed two labor boards that already had open seats as they lost enough members to decide individual cases. Since Trump took office, hundreds of cases are pending at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and thousands of appeals have been filed with the merit board.
The issue is being closely watched by legal experts, some of whom say removing removal protections would give Trump more direct control over regulation in areas as diverse as trade, energy, antitrust enforcement, finance and consumer product safety.
(Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York; Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Matthew Lewis)
