A federal judge ruled that President Donald Trump illegally fired National Labor Relations Board member Gwynne Wilcox in January, ordering the Biden appointee be reinstated to the five-seat board, which has lacked a quorum since her removal.
The January firings of Wilcox and NLRB general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo were an early test of the Trump administration’s power. Though the law specifies a board member can only be fired for “neglect of duty or malfeasance in office,” Trump dismissed Wilcox via email and named right-wing board member Marvin Kaplan as chair.
U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell ruled on Thursday that Wilcox’s firing was unlawful, declaring the Trump-supplied pink slip "null and void.” Wilcox, whose term is set to run until late 2028, would give Democrats a 2-1 majority on the panel.
“The president seems intent on pushing the bounds of his office and exercising his power in a manner violative of clear statutory law to test how much the courts will accept the notion of a presidency that is supreme,” Howell wrote in her 36-page opinion.
The order not only reinstates Wilcox on the board but demands the Trump administration follow protocol should it try to remove Wilcox again.
“An American president is not a king… his power to remove federal officers and honest civil servants like plaintiff is not absolute,” she wrote. “Kaplan, as well as his subordinates, agents, and employees, are enjoined, during plaintiff's term as a member of the NLRB, from removing plaintiff from her office without cause or in any way treating plaintiff as having been removed from office, from impeding in any way her ability to fulfill her duties as a member of the NLRB.”
