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1 1 (June 4, 2025)

handle is hein.crs/smecoutgs0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Congressional ______ *Research Service informing the qegislative debate since9 14_ Supreme Court Grants Emergency Motion on President's Removal Power Updated June 4, 2025 On May 22, 2025, the Supreme Court granted the executive branch's motion to stay lower court orders reinstating officials at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) who enjoy statutory removal protections. Over the opening months of his second Administration, President Donald Trump has actively dismissed agency leaders across the federal government. Some of these removals have raised significant controversy, most notably the dismissal of executive branch officials with statutory removal protections who were in the midst of an unfinished fixed term on an independent regulatory commission. President Trump recently dismissed members of the NLRB, MSPB, Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA), and Federal Trade Commission (FTC), multimember entities where federal law provides that they can be removed by the President only for cause. In dismissing these officials, the President did not assert that the statutory criteria for removal had been met. Instead, the Administration has largely taken the position that statutory for-cause restrictions that limit the President's authority to remove agency leaders unconstitutionally infringe on the President's authority to remove executive officials. The Administration asserts, therefore, that the President may remove these officials at will. All of the affected officials from these four independent regulatory commissions have challenged their removal in court. Members of the NLRB, MSPB, and FLRA initially obtained preliminary relief from federal district courts reinstating them to their respective agencies. The federal government appealed the lower courts' decisions regarding the NLRB and MSPB. On March 28, 2025, a divided three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (D.C. Circuit) granted the government's emergency motion to stay-or postpone-the reinstatement of members of the MSPB and NLRB pending resolution of the government's appeal. In doing so, two of the three judges expressed their view that the NLRB and MSPB removal protections were likely unconstitutional. A little more than a week later, all eleven D.C. Circuit judges reconsidered the earlier stay pending appeal and, by a vote of seven to four, vacated the stay of the district court's order reinstating the members of the NLRB and MSPB. Shortly thereafter, upon request by the government, Chief Justice Roberts issued an administrative stay of the reinstatement orders to give the Supreme Court time to evaluate whether to issue a stay pending the resolution of the government's appeal. Congressional Research Service https://crsreports.congress.gov LSB11292 CRS Legal Sidebar Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress