‘Only the Supreme Court can decide the dispute’

President Donald Trump could be headed to the Supreme Court after a federal appeals court reinstated independent agency leaders who had been fired.

The president could seek the high court’s intervention after the temporary ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and could file an emergency appeal.

“In a 7-4 vote, the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit wiped a ruling from a three-judge panel on the court that sided with the government late last month by greenlighting Trump’s firings of Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) member Cathy Harris and Gwynne Wilcox, a member of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB),” The Hill reported.

BREAKING: En banc DC Cir. court of appeals reinstates members of the NLRB and MSPB that Donald Trump attempted to remove pic.twitter.com/Nq5fM1cedl

— Anna Bower (@AnnaBower) April 7, 2025

The judges in the majority were all appointed by Democratic presidents, while three of those dissenting, U.S. Circuit Judges Gregory Katsas, Neomi Rao and Justin Walker, were all appointed by Trump. U.S. Circuit Judge Karen Henderson was appointed by the late former President George H. W. Bush.

“Only the Supreme Court can decide the dispute and, in my opinion, the sooner, the better,” Henderson wrote in the dissenting opinion.

“Without considering the difficult questions regarding the scope of the court’s equitable or legal authority, the en banc majority blesses the district court’s unprecedented injunctions and purports to reinstate principal officers ousted by the President. In so doing, the majority threatens to send this court headlong into a clash with the Executive,” Rao wrote.

The D.C. Circuit majority contended that the Supreme Court “has repeatedly told the courts of appeals to follow extant Supreme Court precedent unless and until that Court itself changes it or overturns it.”

The Trump administration had appealed the decisions by the federal district court in Washington siding with Wilcox and Harris after they sued over the firings.

“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 said in last month’s ruling siding with the administration.

“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.”

Senior Staff Writer
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Originally from New York, Powers graduated from New York University and eventually made her way to sunny South Florida where she has been writing for the BizPacReview team since 2015.

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