Democrats were illegally fired by Trump on the Consumer Product Safety Commission

The Trump Administration’s Attempt to Shut Down the Commission on Consumer Product Safety (CPSC) During the July 30th White House Letter to Trumka

President Trump fired the Democratic members of an agency that protects Americans from dangerous products in an overnight email.

The Supreme Court has previously indicated a willingness to overturn its precedent in favor of expanding executive power but the FTC case has not yet reached the court. Humphrey’s Executor isn’t the law of the land at the moment, but that could change in the future. It makes it all the more baffling that the president is once again, illegally ousting Commissioners of independent agencies.

The congressional Democrats and Senator from Vermont sent a letter to the Office of Management and Budget Director Friday objecting to their plan to eliminate the agency and absorb its functions and staff.

The Consumer Product Safety Act allows the president to take away members of the CPSC. President Trump has exercised this authority, and he has done so lawfully,” Feldman wrote. CPSC is committed to protecting American consumers from the unreasonable risk of injury associated with consumer products. The commission will continue to do its jobs with diligence and integrity.

The email to Trumka, reviewed by NPR, states that the position on the Consumer Product Safety Commission has been terminated. Thank you for all you have done.

The third democrat commissioner said in a statement that he was prevented from carrying out his duties due to an assertion that the president was trying to remove him.

“The illegal attempt to remove me from CPSC happened immediately after my colleagues and I took steps to advance our safety work and protect our staff from arbitrary firings,” Hoehn-Saric wrote in his statement.

The Trump administration and its DOGE counterparts have pressured independent federal agencies to cut staff and acquiesce to White House control.

Like Dziak, Trumka, Boyle and Hoehn-Saric were nominated by former President Joe Biden. Boyle was a longtime staff member of the CPSC before being nominated to serve as a commissioner.

Trumka, whose father was powerful labor leader and Democratic Party ally Richard Trumka, had a background in law with a career working as an assistant attorney general in the consumer protection division in Maryland and as general counsel and staff director of the House Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy.

Hoehn-Saric similarly has a background in law and working on consumer protection oversight as chief counsel with the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Trump fired the Securities and Exchange Commission, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., FDIC, the Library of Congress, Education Commission and the National Labor Relations Commission

At 4:00 pm, the acting chair of the commission sent a email asking for the approval to bring on two DOGE detailees. He set a 6:00 pm deadline to respond,” Trumka wrote.

They were refused. “If these people are allowed in, they will gut it and the result will be back to the way things were in the 60s and 70s,” Trumka said. Two of my colleagues said no as well, forming a majority to block the move. Rather than respect the democratic process, soon after, I received the email purporting to fire me.”

The Securities and Exchange Commission and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. are independent agencies that were intended to get more power from Trump’s executive order. All of those agencies are supposed to put regulatory work in his administration.

In addition to the thousands of federal workers ousted by DOGE, Trump fired high-ranking officials at independent agencies and any other offices that he perceives as opposing his administration’s agenda. The Library of Congress was hit by high level firings, as were the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the National Labor Relations Board.

I will protect the Americans from harm through that time. The President would like to end this nation’s long history of independent agencies, so he’s chosen to ignore the law and pretend independence doesn’t exist. I’ll see him in court,” Trumka wrote. The work of the CPSC is so important that it’s not worth lying down.

The firing came after a proposal to eliminate theCSPC, 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.”

On Thursday, two members of DOGE showed up at the office. The letters that Trumka and Boyle received the next day said 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. The three members said they would appeal their firings to the courts and that Trump had acted illegally.

The White House still believes that the president has the right to fire executives within the executive branch, even if there is a cause for removal.

In March, the president fired the Democrats serving on the Federal Trade Commission, another independent agency, in contravention of the longstanding Supreme Court precedent, Humphrey’s Executor, which limits presidential power to remove officers at independent agencies — like the FTC — that have authority delegated to them from the legislative branch. The White House and the DOJ have consistently stated that the president can fire anyone he wants, and the DOJ has said it will overturn the Supreme Court decision to allow Humphrey’s Executor to be buried. The new Republican chair of the FTC has also publicly backed this interpretation of the Constitution. Fired FTC commissioners Rebecca Kelly Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya have since sued the administration.