The three liberal members of the Supreme Court issued a scathing dissent to an unsigned order granting President Donald Trump more power to reshape federal agencies.
Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented from the order in Trump v. Boyle, a decision published Wednesday that allowed Trump to fire three Democratic members of the Consumer Product Safety Commission. In the dissent, the justices argued that the conservative majority of the Supreme Court seems hellbent on expanding the president's authority over independent agencies.
"Once again, this Court uses its emergency docket to destroy the independence of an independent agency, as established by Congress," Kagan wrote in the dissent.
The order in Boyle represents another decision by the High Court that Kagan argued allows the president to ignore federal law. Last week, the court issued a decision in McMahon v. New York that effectively allowed the president to shut down the Department of Education by firing all of its workers. That's despite federal law giving Congress the power to create independent agencies.
"By means of such actions, this Court may facilitate the permanent transfer of authority, piece by piece by piece, from one branch of Government to another," Kagan wrote.
