Did the Supreme Court just execute Humphrey’s Executor? Justice Elena Kagan certainly thinks so. That could put an end to nearly a century of an extra-constitutional “independent” branch of the federal government … with one notable exception, as we’ll see.
After a series of defeats over the firing of executive-branch officials in lower courts, the White House appealed to the Supreme Court for a stay that would end injunctions on such actions. It’s not the first time that the Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to intervene in these disputes; the Court refrained from intervention in the Hampton Dellinger lawsuit and ended up getting burned when Dellinger tried to throw sand in the gears of Donald Trump’s policies. The DC Appellate Circuit lifted its stay shortly after, allowing Dellinger to get fired, but Dellinger declined to pursue the…
