Legal experts warned that a recent ruling from the Supreme Court is a trap for future presidents disliked by Chief Justice John Roberts.
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During an episode of Slate’s Amicus podcast, the Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. Slaughter, which lets Trump fire the heads of independent federal agencies, was flagged as a one-sided gift that will snap shut the moment a Democrat returns to the White House.
Sam Bagenstos, a University of Michigan law professor, predicted on the podcast that the Supreme Court would uphold a future Democratic president firing Trump appointees and cite Slaughter to do it. But the catch will be that when those new appointees try to act, the court “would also find other ways to rein in that Democratic president’s power.”
Bagenstos specifically sounded the alarm on the major-questions doctrine, which lets justices strike down policies even though statutory text supported them. Bagenstos noted that during the Biden administration, the Roberts court used that doctrine to “stop Biden from using statutes according to their text to achieve relatively progressive outcomes when the court didn’t like those outcomes.”
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He added, “There are all sorts of other ways in which an activist Republican court can rein in an activist progressive president that don’t require using this particular tool,” referring to the major-questions doctrine, which Bagenstos called a “very powerful tool” for the Roberts court.
“It’s great for the next Democratic president that they’ll be able to fire the Trump appointees in the Federal Trade Commission and the National Labor Relations Board and whatever,” Bagenstos said, listing independent federal agencies. “But then, when their new appointees try to actually get something done, what they’re going to find out is that the courts are standing in their way.”
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