By John Kruzel
WASHINGTON, Oct 19 (Reuters) – The US Supreme Court declined on Monday to hear a bid by a Democratic-appointed member of the National Labor Relations Board to challenge the legality of her firing by President Donald Trump.
The justices turned away former NLRB member Gwynne Wilcox’s appeal of a lower court’s ruling that said the Republican president’s January 2025 firing of her was a valid exercise of executive authority.
The court’s action follows its June decision backing Trump’s firing of Rebecca Slaughter, a Democratic Federal Trade Commission member.
That ruling overturned the court’s 1935 precedent in a case called Humphrey’s Executor that had recognized the authority of Congress to protect leaders of certain regulatory agencies from presidential removal at will. The Slaughter decision capped a decades-long conservative push to strengthen the president’s grip on key levers of government power.
Trump’s move to oust Wilcox from the NLRB was part of his shakeup and downsizing of the US government, including firing thousands of workers, dismantling federal agencies, installing loyalists in key jobs and purging career officials.
“I’m disappointed that the Supreme Court has declined to hear this case, not only for myself, but also for the workers and employers who rely on the National Labor Relations Board to resolve labor disputes impartially and free from political pressure,” Wilcox said in a statement.
Wilcox added that she would remain committed to “protecting the principles that allow the board to serve the public fairly.”
The Justice Department declined to comment.
Wilcox, the first Black woman to serve on the agency’s board, was appointed to a second five-year term in 2023 by Democratic former President Joe Biden. Trump moved to fire her about a week into his second presidential term, drawing a lawsuit by Wilcox. Slaughter also was a Biden appointee.
The legal fight over Trump’s firing of Wilcox and other officials has figured as a key test of his efforts to bring federal agencies meant by Congress to be independent from the president under his control.
US District Judge Beryl Howell in March 2025 upheld a federal law protecting NLRB officials from being fired without cause, rejecting Trump’s argument that the measure passed by Congress encroaches on authority granted to the president under the US Constitution.
That ruling was reversed in a 2-1 decision by the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in December 2025, prompting Wilcox’s appeal to the Supreme Court.
(Reporting by John Kruzel; Editing by Will Dunham)
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