The Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that President Donald Trump can proceed with firing three Democratic members of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), reversing their court-ordered reinstatement and handing a key victory to the Trump administration in an escalating fight over executive authority.
In a 6–3 decision, the conservative majority sided with the administration on the final day of the Court’s current term. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented.
The ruling stems from an emergency request filed earlier this month by U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer after a federal judge in Maryland blocked the firings and ordered the three commissioners—Mary Boyle, Alexander Hoehn-Saric, and Richard Trumka Jr.—reinstated. U.S. District Judge Matthew Maddox, a Biden appointee, ruled that their removal was unlawful and conflicted with the protections granted to independent agency board members.
After the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals declined to halt Maddox’s ruling, the Trump administration appealed to the Supreme Court, which granted the emergency request to lift the lower court’s order.
In its filing, the administration argued that the case mirrors two others recently taken up by the Court—involving board members at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB). In those cases, the Court temporarily blocked the reinstatements of officials removed by the Trump administration. Sauer told the justices that those decisions “squarely control this case.”
Attorneys for the CPSC members disagreed, arguing in their own brief that their abrupt removal would destabilize an agency responsible for ensuring consumer safety. They also noted that the Trump administration waited four months before taking action against them—undermining any claim of urgent, irreparable harm required for emergency court intervention.
Nonetheless, the justices sided with Trump, allowing the firings to proceed immediately.
The ruling is the latest in a series of high-profile legal battles over the limits of presidential power to remove officials at so-called independent agencies. The debate traces back to Humphrey’s Executor, a 1935 Supreme Court precedent that established presidents cannot fire members of independent commissions without cause.
In his initial ruling, Judge Maddox had found that the CPSC’s structure—with its five members serving staggered terms and granted tenure protections—did not interfere with President Trump’s Article II executive powers. But he acknowledged that the legal uncertainty surrounding related cases at the NLRB and MSPB had led to repeated reinstatements and removals, prompting him to issue a permanent injunction to prevent further disruption.
“Disruption might have resulted in the instant case if Plaintiffs had been reinstated while this case was in its preliminary posture, only to have the Court later deny relief in its final judgment,” Maddox wrote. “That risk is no longer present now that permanent injunctive relief is being granted.”
Despite that reasoning, the Supreme Court’s order overrides Maddox’s judgment and reaffirms Trump’s authority to reshape independent agencies—a long-running legal and constitutional flashpoint.
The CPSC has not issued a public comment following the Supreme Court’s decision. The subpoenas and firings come amid broader efforts by President Trump to assert control over federal boards and commissions as part of his wider executive agenda in his second term.
