(Reuters) – The U.S. Department of Justice will cease defending the independent status of three consumer and worker protection agencies, according to a letter posted by a Democratic member of Congress on Wednesday.
The determination applies to the National Labor Relations Board, U.S. Federal Trade Commission and Consumer Product Safety Commission, according to the letter from Acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris to Senator Richard Durbin, the highest ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Under 90-year-old Supreme Court precedent, FTC commissioners and members of many other bipartisan independent agencies can only be fired for cause, unlike executive branch agencies whose heads the president can fire at will.
The DOJ will ask the Supreme Court to overturn that ruling to the extent that it protects regulators who wield “substantial executive power” from being fired by the president, Harris wrote, according to a copy of the letter Senate Democrats posted on social media.
“I am writing to advise you that the Department of Justice has determined that certain for-cause removal provisions that apply to members of multi-member regulatory commissions are unconstitutional and the Department will no longer defend their constitutionality,” Harris said in the letter.
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
(Reporting by Jody Godoy in California; Editing by Rod Nickel)
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