A federal judge ruled Friday that President Trump’s firings of three former President Biden-nominated Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) members were illegal, enabling them to return to their posts.
U.S. District Judge Matthew Maddox, a Biden appointee who serves in Maryland, ordered the administration restore the commissioners’ pay as well as their access to office spaces, computers and email accounts.
The three commissioners — Mary Boyle, Alexander Hoehn-Saric and Richard Trumka Jr. — sued the administration after Trump fired them last month.
Maddox is the latest district judge to block Trump’s efforts to fire Democratic appointees at independent agencies across the federal bureaucracy despite federal law providing them with for-cause removal protections.
The president did not purport to have cause in firing the CPSC members or those at other agencies. His administration seeks to invalidate the protections as unconstitutional by intruding on the president’s authority to oversee the executive branch.
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority has signaled a willingness to agree with that view, but it has not yet formally overruled the court’s 90-year-old precedent that paved the way for Congress to provide the removal protections.
In its latest signal, the nation’s highest court last month lifted lower injunctions blocking Trump’s firings at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), saying the agency leaders could be terminated until any appeals are resolved.
Maddox acknowledged that decision Friday but distinguished it from his case. He stressed the Supreme Court rooted its decision in how the NLRB and MSPB leaders faced a whiplash of removals and reinstatements throughout the lower court proceedings, insisting the decision did not eviscerate the constitutionality of removal protections.
“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 and subject Plaintiffs to removal again,” the judge wrote. “The risk of such disruption is no longer a factor now that the Court is granting permanent injunctive relief as a final judgment.”
The Justice Department declined to comment.
“Today’s opinion reaffirms that the President is not above the law,” Nick Sansone, the commissioners’ lead counsel who works for consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, said in a statement.
“Congress structured the CPSC as an independent agency so that the safety of American consumers wouldn’t be subject to political whims and industry pressure,” Sansone continued. “The court’s ruling upholds that sound legislative choice.”
He added, “We are thrilled that our clients can get back to work keeping us safe from hazardous products.”
