President Donald Trump just notched a significant win at the U.S. Supreme Court, and the progressive establishment isn’t happy about it.
The Daily Caller reported that in a 6-3 ruling on Thursday, the high court temporarily greenlit Trump’s push to remove Democrat appointees from key federal boards, handing a setback to lower court decisions that sought to keep them in place.
Let’s rewind to the start of Trump’s latest term, where, within his first two months, he moved to dismiss Gwynne Wilcox from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and Cathy Harris from the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB).
Wilcox, with four years left on her term, and Harris, with three years remaining, didn’t go quietly, challenging their removals in lower courts with lawsuits against the administration.
By March, Judge Beryl Howell of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ordered Trump to reinstate Wilcox, while Judge Rudolph Contreras ruled Harris couldn’t be fired at will—two roadblocks to executive authority.
Undeterred, the Trump administration fired back with an emergency application to the Supreme Court on April 9, seeking to overturn these reinstatement orders and reassert control over these appointments.
Chief Justice John Roberts swiftly issued an administrative stay, hitting pause on the lower court rulings and giving the Supreme Court time to weigh the administration’s urgent request.
Thursday’s decision saw the court, in a 6-3 split with liberal justices dissenting, temporarily block the lower court orders, allowing Trump’s dismissals of Wilcox and Harris to stand for now.
As the court filing noted, “The stay reflects our judgment that the Government is likely to show that both the NLRB and MSPB exercise considerable executive power.” Well, isn’t that a polite way of saying the president might just have the authority to clean house?
In a follow-up statement, the filing added, “The stay also reflects our judgment that the Government faces greater risk of harm from an order allowing a removed officer to continue exercising the executive power.” Translation: letting unelected holdovers wield influence might be the bigger problem here, not their bruised egos.
But the justices were clear this isn’t the final word, noting that a deeper dive into whether these boards fall under specific exceptions will wait for full briefing and oral arguments, likely next year.
Meanwhile, on February 5, protesters gathered outside the Theodore Roosevelt Federal Building in Washington, D.C., home to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, voicing their discontent over these high-stakes personnel moves.
For conservatives, this temporary stay feels like a breath of fresh air—a reminder that executive power should mean something, especially when unelected bureaucrats seem to cling to influence like barnacles on a ship.
Yet, empathy is due to Wilcox and Harris, who undoubtedly poured years into their roles, only to face abrupt dismissal; still, one might whisper, turns out presidential prerogative can sting when it’s wielded with purpose.
As this legal saga unfolds, the nation watches whether the Supreme Court will cement this win for Trump or if the progressive agenda will claw back ground in the next round, because in D.C., the only certainty is that the fight never ends.