More than three dozen federal judges have told The New York Times that the Supreme Court’s flurry of brief, opaque emergency orders in cases related to the Trump administration have left them confused about how to proceed in those matters and are hurting the judiciary’s image with the public. In interviews, federal judges called the Court’s emergency orders “mystical,” “overly blunt,” “incredibly demoralizing” and “troubling” and “a slap in the face to the district courts.” One judge compared their district’s current relationship with the Supreme Court to “a war zone.” Another said the courts were in the midst of a “judicial crisis.” Take, for example, the Court’s decision to allow Trump to fire FTC Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, despite nearly 90 years of settled precedent establishing that independent agency commissioners can only be removed “for cause.” The 1935 Supreme Court decision in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States made clear that such commissioners serve fixed terms and cannot be fired at the president’s whim—it’s one of the foundational principles of administrative law.
Author: Leigh Beadon
Published at: 2025-10-14 21:47:46
Still want to read the full version? Full article
