Appeals court clears way for Trump to fire members of labor and workforce protection boards (2025)

Washington — A federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., cleared the way for President Trump to fire members of the National Labor Relations Board and Merit Systems Protection Board after district courts had earlier blocked their removals and ordered them reinstated.

A three-judge panel of judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit divided 2-1 in agreeing to halt the lower court orders that voided Mr. Trump's firings of Gwynne Wilcox from the National Labor Relations Board and Cathy Harris from the Merit Systems Protection Board while legal proceedings move forward.

Wilcox and Harris had argued that their firings violated federal laws that limited their removals only for neglect of duty or malfeasance in office. The Trump administration, meanwhile, defended the terminations and said the restrictions on the president's ability to remove the officials are unconstitutional.

"The people elected the president to enforce the nation's laws, and a stay serves that purpose by allowing the people's chosen officer to control the executive branch," Judge Justin Walker, who was appointed by Mr. Trump in his first term, wrote in an opinion siding with the administration.

Wilcox was nominated to the National Labor Relations Board by former President Joe Biden and confirmed by the Senate to a five-year term in September 2023. She was designated chair of the board in December 2024.

Harris was selected to serve on the Merit Systems Protection Board by Biden and confirmed in 2022. She was approved by the Senate as chair last year.

Soon after Mr. Trump returned to the White House for his second term, Wilcox received a letter from the president informing her that the labor board had not been operating in a manner consistent with his administration's objectives, and telling her she had been removed. In Harris' case, she received an email in early February from the White House Presidential Personnel Office that stated, "On behalf of President Donald J. Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position on the Merit Systems Protection Board is terminated, effective immediately."

Both officials filed lawsuits seeking reinstatement in the federal district court in Washington. District court judges separately ruled in favor of Wilcox and Harris, finding their removals were unlawful and returning them to their roles.

The Trump administration appealed the decisions and asked the D.C. Circuit to put them on hold while it considered the matter.

In his concurring opinion, Walker said the district court orders effectively nullify the president's power under Article II to remove executive officials.

"The people elected the president, not Harris or Wilcox, to execute the nation's laws," he said. "The forcible reinstatement of a presidentially removed principal officer disenfranchises voters by hampering the president's ability to govern during the four short years the people have assigned him the solemn duty of leading the executive branch."

Judge Patricia Millet, appointed by former President Barack Obama, dissented from the court's decision to grant a stay.

"The whole purpose of a stay is to avoid instability and turmoil. But the court's decision today creates them," she wrote.

Millett wrote that majority's rationale "openly calls into question" the constitutionality of dozens of federal statutes that limit the circumstances for when an official on a multimember board can be removed, from the Federal Reserve to the National Transportation Safety Board to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

"I cannot join a decision that uses a hurried and preliminary first-look ruling by this court to announce a revolution in the law that the Supreme Court has expressly avoided, and to trap in legal limbo millions of employees and employers whom the law says must go to these boards for the resolution of their employment disputes," she said.