Dear listeners,
This week’s show is heavy on economic policy. Yay! Ken and I discuss a ruling from the U.S. Court of International Trade that many of Trump’s beloved tariffs are illegal — the court says the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 does not simply allow the president to impose tariffs willy-nilly. (After we recorded, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals issued an administrative stay, so the order is on hold, for now.)
We also look at a strange shadow-docket order in U.S. v. Wilcox, a case about the National Labor Relations Board. The Supreme Court’s conservative majority is allowing Trump to go ahead and fire Gwynne Wilcox from the NLRB, in spite of a law that prohibits the president from firing its members without cause. It’s a strong sign the Court intends to overturn Humphrey’s Executor and find that all executive branch officials have to be fireable by the president. This raises a key economic question: Does that mean the president can fire the entire Federal Reserve Board, too? Don’t worry, say the court’s majority: “The Federal Reserve is a uniquely structured, quasi-private entity that follows in the distinct historical tradition of the First and Second Banks of the United States.”
As Elena Kagan notes in dissent, that’s a weird-ass hand wave with no plausible basis in the law. It does make a certain amount of sense as a policy choice: conservatives tend to believe Fed independence is important for the economy, even as they look skeptically at other unaccountable quasi-executive agencies. But the fact that the justices need to fudge the law here raises the question of how seriously they take their underlying interpretation of the Constitution.
That’s the episode for free subscribers. Paying subscribers this week also get an update on the administration’s dealings with Big Law — more judgments in favor of the firms that sued the administration, and some weird efforts (not apparently successful, so far) to leverage the pro bono promises of the firms that settled. Also for paying subscribers, we have updates about the Mahmoud Khalil and Kseniia Petrova cases, the Francesca Gino saga, and about Trevor Kirk, the LA County Sheriff’s deputy convicted of using excessive force who the Trump administration is trying to keep out of prison.
Here’s the button to get all of that:
We hope you enjoy the episode,
Josh
