By Nate Raymond
(Reuters) -A Democrat who served at the U.S. agency that hears appeals by federal government employees when they are fired or disciplined has filed a lawsuit challenging Republican U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to fire her.
The lawsuit by Cathy Harris, who the president tried to fire from the Merit Systems Protection Board on Monday, marked the latest instance of an official with an independent agency going to court after Trump said he was axing them.
Trump on Monday also removed another Democratic member, Ray Limon, from his position as the board’s vice chair. U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras in Washington scheduled a hearing on Thursday to consider Harris’ request for a temporary restraining order reinstating her.
“I am fighting this to protect against the dismantling of the federal agencies who ward against corruption, grift, and political interference with the civil service,” Harris said in a statement.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt in a statement said Trump “has every right to exercise his executive authority on behalf of the American people.”
Harris, who was appointed to the board in 2022 by Trump’s Democratic predecessor Joe Biden, until recently was its chair. Trump named Henry Kerner, a Republican, as its acting chair upon returning to the White House on January 20.
Federal workers who lose their jobs can bring a challenge before the board, an independent three-member panel, seeking to be reinstated. That role could put the board in a central spot as Trump moves swiftly to shrink the federal government’s workforce.
Trump on Tuesday ordered U.S. agencies to work closely with billionaire adviser Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to identify government employees who could be laid off and functions that can be eliminated.
Merit Systems Protection Board members serve seven-year terms. Harris’ lawsuit noted that under a statute they can only be removed “for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.”
She argued her firing was unlawful and contravened long-standing legal precedent governing the removal of independent agency officials.
She cited the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1935 ruling in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States that has limited a president’s ability to fire certain agency heads. Some justices on today’s 6-3 conservative-majority court have signaled a willingness to rein in or perhaps overturn that ruling.
Gwynne Wilcox, a Democrat who Trump fired from her position on the National Labor Relations Board, has filed a similar lawsuit.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Hugh Lawson, Alexia Garamfalvi and Daniel Wallis)
