Supreme Court rules on independent agencies, mail ballots, more
On Monday, the court gave President Trump a win on firing independent agency officials and losses on firing Federal Reserve official Lisa Cook, mail ballots, and an E. Jean Carroll case.
Independent agencies, Lisa Cook
The court allowed Trump to remove a member of the Federal Trade Commission, Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, overturning a key 1935 Supreme Court ruling called Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, which upheld restrictions on the president’s power to fire FTC members.
The Monday ruling gives Trump “sweeping new authority over approximately two dozen multi-member agencies that Congress intended to be independent,” says Amy Howe of SCOTUSblog.
In the Cook case, the court rejected the Trump administration’s contention that the president’s firing of Cook for cause — over allegations of mortgage fraud, which she denies — couldn’t be reviewed in court and that she could not stay in office while contesting the decision.
“The court in effect created a Federal Reserve exception to its general view — long favored by conservatives suspicious of what some term a federal bureaucratic deep state — that restrictions on the president’s power to fire members of federal agencies imposed by Congress were an unconstitutional restriction of executive authority,” says longtime reporter on the court Lawrence Hurley, of NBC News.
“Monday’s decision was a major victory for proponents of the “unitary executive” theory – the idea that the president should have complete control over the executive branch. Under this theory, the president should be able to fire any member of the executive branch, and laws – like the one that the court struck down – that restrict his ability to do so violate the separation of powers, says SCOTUSblog.
The “unitary executive” is “a theory the right wing has pushed since the 1980s, when it began to distrust the will of voters as they expressed it through Congress and thus tried to find ways to assert the power of the president and reduce the power of Congress,” says Heather Cox Richardson.
The court divided differently in each case, says NBC News. In Cook, the vote was 5-4 with the court’s liberals joining the majority, and they dissented in Slaughter, which was 6-3 on ideological lines.
Mail-in ballots
“President Trump’s wide-reaching campaign to change election laws suffered another setback on Monday, when the Supreme Court blocked a crucial pathway to restricting mail-in voting practices that he has long blamed, without evidence, as central to his defeat in 2020,” says The New York Times.
The court’s ruling upheld a Mississippi state law allowing mail ballots to be received up to five days after Election Day. It follows a federal court’s decision last week striking down key parts of a Trump executive order that sought in part to empower the U.S. Postal Service to regulate mail voting.
While the Supreme Court ruling frustrated the president, election administrators breathed a sigh of relief in the 18 states and territories across the country that currently allow for late-arriving ballots postmarked by Election Day, says the Times.
Trump appeal of E. Jean Carroll case
The Supreme Court announced on Monday that it won’t hear an appeal by Trump seeking review of the $5 million jury verdict entered against him in the sexual abuse and defamation case filed by journalist E. Jean Carroll, SCOTUSblog reports.
Warrant required for cellphone location data
In a ruling applying individual constitutional protections to new technology, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday that sweeping use of cellphone location data requires a warrant, NBC News reports.
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Nancy Pelosi to launch institute focused on protecting democracy at University of California, Berkeley
Colorado Supreme Court rejects November ballot initiatives aimed at redrawing congressional districts
Self-exiled Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui sentenced to 30 years in U.S. prison for fraud
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Democrats in 25 states and D.C. sue Trump administration over Medicaid work rules
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WSJ: Experts say chatbots shouldn’t take the place of therapy
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