A federal appeals court ruled the nation’s top copyright official can continue serving in her post following President Donald Trump’s attempt to fire her.
A divided three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that Shira Perlmutter is entitled to continue to serve as the register of copyrights at the Library of Congress, despite the White House’s claim that Trump fired her from the post in May.
While the Supreme Court and the D.C. Circuit have permitted Trump to fire a range of executive branch officials who claimed they were protected from dismissal, judges Florence Pan and J. Michelle Childs concluded that Perlmutter’s case was stronger because she doesn’t exercise significant executive power in her job.
“Because Perlmutter leads an agency that is housed in the Legislative Branch and her primary role is to advise Congress, Perlmutter’s situation differs significantly from the Executive Branch officials whose removals have been repeatedly upheld,” Pan wrote, joined by Childs. Both are appointees of former President Joe Biden.
Perlmutter was dismissed days after Trump moved to fire Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden, who has not sought to challenge her ouster in court. The president’s move onto what has traditionally been legislative branch turf has vexed Democrats and some congressional Republicans.
Judge Justin Walker, a Trump appointee, dissented. He said Perlmutter’s claims were too similar to cases the Supreme Court ruled on earlier this year where the justices upheld, for now, Trump’s power to fire members of labor-related boards and the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
Walker wrote that the register of copyrights “exercises executive power in a host of ways.” He cited a D.C. Circuit ruling last year that found the Library of Congress is part of the executive branch when it acts as a copyright regulator, but the other two judges said he overlooked Perlmutter’s “prominent Congress-facing duties.”
