Supreme Court declines review of Trump's NLRB firing

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear former National Labor Relations Board member Gwynne Wilcox's challenge to President Donald Trump's January 2025 removal of her. The Court's October 19 order list places Wilcox v. Trump, docket No. 26-5, under petitions for certiorari denied. The denial leaves in place the D.C. Circuit's December 2025 judgment that Trump's removal was a valid exercise of executive authority.

Response: The Supreme Court did not issue a merits opinion, endorse every part of the lower court's reasoning or create a new holding in Wilcox's case; it simply denied review. Congress had provided tenure protection for NLRB members, and Wilcox argued that Trump lacked lawful cause to remove her before her term ended. The Justice Department opposed review on Trump's behalf, and the Court docket records that response. Reuters reported that the dispute was a significant test of Trump's effort to bring congressionally insulated agencies under presidential control. The result follows the Court's June 2026 ruling in a separate Federal Trade Commission removal case, which overturned the 1935 Humphrey's Executor precedent. No separate statement or recorded dissent accompanied the Wilcox denial in the October 19 order list.