The Supreme Court allowed Shira Perlmutter to continue to serve as register of copyrights for the Library of Congress in an order issued Tuesday, denying a request from the Trump administration to remove her while she fights her firing in court.
The two-sentence decision leaves open the issue of whether Trump can remove officials from within the Library of Congress, which formally works for the legislative branch. The unsigned order, released with other decisions at the close of the term, noted it was “not a ruling on the merits of the legal issues presented in the litigation.”
The order keeps in place a ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit which allowed Perlmutter to remain in office while she challenged her firing in federal court.
Trump officials attempted to fire Perlmutter last May, after removing Carla Hayden as librarian of Congress and replacing her with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who is now acting attorney general. Perlmutter challenged her firing, arguing that Blanche was not properly appointed as librarian and could not remove her as a legislative official.
The order came a day after the Supreme Court issued a pair of decisions reshaping the president’s power over the executive branch. In Trump v. Slaughter, the justices ruled that presidents can remove members of agency boards despite laws preventing their removal except for good cause.
However, in Trump v. Cook, the justices held that members of the Federal Reserve board, as a quasi-governmental agency, should receive at least some process before they are removed.
The justices had said they would wait to deal with the Perlmutter case until after ruling in the Cook and Slaughter cases.
The case is Todd Blanche, in his capacity as the person claiming to be acting librarian of Congress, et al. v. Shira Perlmutter, register of copyrights and director of the U.S. Copyright Office.
