The Supreme Court on Monday scrapped a nearly 100-year-old precedent and gave Donald Trump broad new power to remove and replace regulators at dozens of key agencies. In the same day of rulings, the court also blocked his effort to oust Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.
The shift is sweeping. By a six-to-three vote in the removal-power case, the justices said presidents may fire subordinates who exercise presidential authority, a rule that reaches regulators who shape election laws, communications policy, labour disputes and financial and environmental rules. Trump quickly celebrated on Truth Social, saying ninety years of precedent had been “completely and unequivocally overruled,” and called the change “greatly increasing presidential power at a time when it is most needed!”
The precedent the court discarded had stood for nearly 100 years and traced back to a unanimous ruling that said Democratic President Franklin Delano Roosevelt did not have unchecked power to replace commissioners on agencies Congress had designed to sit apart from the White House. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that if officials exercise the president’s power, they are answerable to him, and that “then, and only then, can they remain accountable to the president, and the president to the people.” The ruling gives future presidents a much stronger hand over the Federal Trade Commission and other independent regulators whose work can influence markets, elections and public policy.
But the court did not give Trump everything he wanted. In a separate five-to-four ruling, Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh joined the three liberal justices to block Trump’s attempt to remove Cook after he accused her of mortgage fraud. Roberts said she deserved a chance to challenge the move and answer the accusations, and he warned of the calamities that could follow if a president were allowed to impose his will on the Federal Reserve. That split left the day looking like a broad win for presidential power with one notable exception: the court is willing to let Trump reach deep into the regulatory state, but not yet into the central bank’s boardroom.
The unresolved question is what happens next in Cook’s case if Trump’s accusations are further substantiated. For now, she keeps her seat while the court’s new rule reshapes the ground beneath dozens of agencies, and another Monday decision on mail-in ballots showed that the justices were also prepared to keep working through the mechanics of federal power long after the removal fight was over.
