On Friday, Donald Trump abruptly removed the three sitting Democrat appointees on the five-person U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission — the independent watchdog agency that issues recalls and regulates everyday products, including consumer electronics. With no apparent cause for removal, the firings violate existing Supreme Court precedent dating back to 1935, as did Trump’s removals of the Democratic commissioners of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) back in March.
The firing comes in the wake of a draft budget proposal that would have eliminated the CSPC, whose commissioners are bipartisan by law and who serve five-year terms. The proposal would have instead rolled the commission’s regulatory powers into the Department of Health and Human Services, which is led by a political appointee — presently, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
The Washington Post reported that the firings came shortly after the three Democrats on the commission — Richard Trumka, Mary Boyle and Alexander Hoehn-Saric, all Biden appointees — voted to publish safety standards for small lithium-ion batteries used in electric bikes and electric scooters, with the two Republicans voting against it. The report specifically noted that these batteries have a record of catching on fire and “resulting in at least 39 fatalities and 181 injuries nationwide.”
The following Thursday, two members of DOGE appeared at the CPSC’s offices. The next day, Trumka and Boyle received letters notifying them that they were fired. Hoehn-Saric did not receive a letter, but according to The Hill, he and his staff found themselves locked out of the building. All three members released statements saying that they planned to appeal their firings to the courts and that Trump had acted illegally.
The three members received support from Consumer Reports, which stated in a press release that the firings were “an appalling and lawless attack on the independence of our country’s product safety watchdog.”
Rather than state a cause for removal, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt once again reiterated the White House’s position that the president “has the right to fire people within the executive branch.”
The Supreme Court has previously signaled a willingness to overturn its own precedent in favor of expanding executive power, but the FTC case has not yet reached the court. Humphrey’s Executor remains the law of the land for now, though that could very well change in the near future. But that only makes it all the more baffling as to why the president is, once again, illegally firing commissioners of independent agencies.
