Justice Kagan, with whom Justice Sotomayor and Justice Jackson join, dissenting from the grant of the application for stay.

Once again, this Court uses its emergency docket to destroy the independence of an independent agency, as established by Congress. Two months ago, in Trump v. Wilcox, the majority issued a stay allowing the President to discharge, without any cause, Democratic members of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB). See 605 U. S. ___, ___ (2025) (slip op., at 1). Today, the same majority’s stay permits the President to fire, again without cause, the Democratic members of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). Congress provided that the CPSC, like the NLRB and MSPB, would operate as “a classic independent agency—a multi-member, bipartisan commission” whose members serve staggered terms and cannot be removed except for good reason. Id., at ___ (Kagan, J., dissenting from grant of application for stay) (slip op., at 2); see 15 U. S. C. §2053(a) (requiring “neglect of duty or malfeasance”). In Congress’s view, that structure would better enable the CPSC to achieve its mission—ensuring the safety of consumer products, from toys to appliances—than would a single-party agency under the full control of a single President. The CPSC has thus operated as an independent agency for many decades, as the NLRB and MSPB also did. But this year, on its emergency docket, the majority has rescinded that status. By allowing the President to remove Commissioners for no reason other than their party affiliation, the majority has negated Congress’s choice of agency bipartisanship and independence.

In doing so, the majority has also all but overturned Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, 295 U. S. 602, 626 (1935), a near-century-old precedent of this Court. As I explained in Wilcox, we held in Humphrey’s that independent agencies like the CPSC (and NLRB and MSPB) do not violate the Constitution’s separation of powers. See 605 U. S., at ___, ___ (dissenting opinion) (slip op., at 1, 3). In creating such “quasi-legislative or quasi-judicial bodies” to implement legislative directives, Humphrey’s explained, Congress may “forbid their [members’] removal except for cause.” 295 U. S., at 626, 629. Now, though, the opposite rule obtains: The majority, through its stays, has prevented Congress from prohibiting removals without cause. On the Court’s emergency docket—which means “on a short fuse without benefit of full briefing and oral argument”—the majority has effectively expunged Humphrey’s from the U. S. Reports. Doe v. Mills, 595 U. S. ___, ___ (2021) (Barrett, J., concurring in denial of application for injunctive relief) (slip op., at 1).

And it has accomplished those ends with the scantiest of explanations. The majority’s sole professed basis for today’s stay order is its prior stay order in Wilcox. But Wilcox itself was minimally (and, as I have previously shown, poorly) explained. See 605 U. S., at ___–___ (Kagan, J., dissenting) (slip op., at 4–7). It contained one sentence (ignored today) hinting at but not deciding the likelihood of success on the merits, plus two more respecting the “balance [of] the equities.” Id., at ___–___ (order) (slip op., at 1–2); see id., at ___–___ (Kagan, J., dissenting) (slip op., at 4–7). So only another under-reasoned emergency order undergirds today’s. Next time, though, the majority will have two (if still under-reasoned) orders to cite. “Truly, this is ‘turtles all the way down.’” Rapanos v. United States, 547 U. S. 715, 754 (2006) (plurality opinion). The majority rejects Congress’s design of a whole class of agencies (except, as Wilcox somehow has it, the Federal Reserve) by layering nothing on nothing.

The result—an increase of executive power at the expense of legislative authority—does not stand alone. Just last week, this Court granted another stay allowing the President to ignore a federal statute. That decision permitted the President to push forward in dismantling the Department of Education, even though Congress created that agency and tasked it with performing vital functions. See McMahon v. New York, 606 U. S. ___, ___ (2025) (Sotomayor, J., dissenting) (slip op., at 1). If the majority had any valid basis for taking that action (relating, say, to the breadth of the District Court’s preliminary injunction) it did not appear on the face of the Court’s unreasoned order. See id., at ___ (order) (slip op., at 1); id., at ___ (Sotomayor, J., dissenting) (slip op., at 18). That order simply signaled that the President could carry on, even in the face of a conflicting statute. So too does this order, and with the same lack of care. The majority has acted on the emergency docket—with “little time, scant briefing, and no argument”—to override Congress’s decisions about how to structure administrative agencies so that they can perform their prescribed duties. Wilcox, 605 U. S., at ___ (Kagan, J., dissenting) (slip op., at 5). By means of such actions, this Court may facilitate the permanent transfer of authority, piece by piece by piece, from one branch of Government to another. Respectfully, I dissent.