A federal appeals court blocked President Donald Trump from removing Democratic members from two federal labor boards on Monday. The court rulingreinstates quorums on boards that were thrown into chaos and expedites a potential appeal to the Supreme Court.
The decision is the latest in a back-and-forth battle that started when Trump fired Gwynne Wilcox from the National Labor Relations Board and Cathy Harris from the Merit Systems Protection Board. Federal judges reversed both firings.
The Trump administration appealed to a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which issued a 2-1 decision effectively refiring the two women. The women asked the full court to review it, and they decided 7-4 in their favor. A full hearing will take place May 16.
The White House and lawyers for Wilcox and Harris did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.
The Trump administration may appeal to the Supreme Court the decision to reinstate the two women. Legal observers on both sides of the conflict have said this issue is headed to the Supreme Court.
“The D.C. circuit is moving very fast,” said Thomas Berry, the director of constitutional studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.
Michael Sozan, a senior fellow at the liberal-leaning Center for American Progress, said the Supreme Court could create an emergency slot for the Trump administration to argue to refire the women.
Trump has fired seven board members at independent agencies because they had differing political views from his, a trend that has invited multiple challenges based on laws that protect them from being fired except for “inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in office.”
Fired leaders, including Wilcox and Harris, allege that Trump is breaking the law, but the Trump administration argues that the law is unconstitutional and violates his role as the nation’s unitary executive.
The appeals court is scheduled to hear arguments on that issue next month, and Berry predicted the Supreme Court could hear arguments near the end of the year.