The CSPC has a five person board, with no more than three from any given party affiliation. The commission was set up with terms staggered across administrations, in order to buffer its independence from any given administration.
The three Democratic commissioners on the five-person panel were Richard Trumka Jr., Mary Boyle and Alexander Hoehn-Saric, who were all appointed by former President Biden and confirmed by the Senate.
All three were removed by the current administration, leaving the CSPC unable to take action or reach quorum.
Justice Elena Kagan dissented “By allowing the President to remove Commissioners for no reason other than their party affiliation,” Kagan contended, “the majority has negated Congress’s choice of agency bipartisanship and independence.”
The dispute began in early May, when the three commissioners – Mary Boyle, Alexander Hoehn-Saric, and Richard Trumka – were notified that they had been fired from their positions. Under the laws creating the CPSC, a commissioner can only be removed by the president “for neglect of duty or malfeasance in office.”
The Supreme Court on Wednesday cleared the way for the Trump administration to remove three of the five members of the Consumer Product Safety Commission from office while their challenges to their firings continue.
The Supreme Court apparently agrees that Trump has the right to perform his duties and powers granted to him to fire these three. So I don’t see the problem as long as the Democrats do not stand in the way of any new appointments to those three positions. Of course we know they will and as such they will be at fault for any future problems as a result.
FWIW IMO the CPSC is a totally useless function anyhow!
The statutory rule is that two of those three must be Democrats.
However in the meantime, the commission has been left without quorum, unable to perform it’s normal and boring role.
The administration could have chosen to have new appointees ready, but instead chose to add an indeterminate delay to the function and process of the commission. Your goal could be to change or reform government, or your goal could be to make it work so poorly it can be destroyed.
And you know for a fact they have not already found three replacements? Not that it matters because the Democrats will stall it anyhow and any issues now fall on them.