A series of Supreme Court rulings could pave the way for “aggressive efforts” from Donald Trump’s successor.
Legal experts have claimed two cases, one being Trump v. United States and another involving the president’s powers to fire, could set in motion a chance to “consolidate power” in the White House. A conversation between Kate Shaw, Will Baude, and Stephen Vladeck in The New York Times had the trio discuss what the overturning of Humphrey’s Executor could mean for the future of the United States.
Humphrey’s Executor allows Congress to enact laws limiting the sitting president, particularly in the firing of executive officials of an independent agency. Vladeck believes the “careless language” surrounding possible changes to Humphrey’s Executor and Trump v. United States is a slippery slope to kneecapping Congress more than they already are.
Vladeck said, “Two things can be true — that this court has been chomping at the bit to pare Humphrey’s Executor back to a fare-thee-well, and that there is a lot of careless language and analysis in the chief justice’s majority opinion in the presidential immunity case that only emboldens claims of indefeasible executive power in contexts in which we would previously have thought Congress could do something.”
“Is it now unconstitutional to require the solicitor general to be a lawyer? Or to bar active-duty (or recently retired) service members from becoming secretary of defense?”
“That, to me, is the real story here: In the name of a very formalist reading of Article II (except for all of the exceptions the court doesn’t want to have to acknowledge), the majority is continuing to kneecap Congress in ways that will be very hard to recover from, and that will enable only more aggressive efforts by this president and his successors to consolidate power in the executive branch.”
The Supreme Court has previously stayed lower court rulings relating to firings acted on during Trump’s second term which may breach Humphrey’s Law. Baude added that previous rulings relating to Trump and his second term had been a “very bad sign”.
Baude said, “The thing that most concerns me is the risk that the court won’t take its own formalist principles as seriously when it comes to restraining executive power.”
“The jury is still out on that, and the tariff case will be an important data point, but Trump v. United States was a very bad sign. I’d rather have a non-originalist court than a court that uses originalism to help the president win cases and then finds excuses not to use it against him.”
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