Robert E. Primus filed a federal lawsuit today challenging his dismissal from the Surface Transportation Board.
President Donald Trump fired Primus on Aug. 27 without giving a reason for the decision.
The president has sought to exert greater control over independent agencies like the STB. He has ousted Democratic members of the Federal Trade Commission, the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the Federal Reserve.
By law, STB members serve fixed terms and may be removed by the president only “for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” No one has suggested Primus, a Democrat, has run afoul of those standards.
“I am fighting against this illegal termination not just for my statutory right to serve out my appointed term, but also for the right of every Board Member, present and future, Republican or Democrat, to serve on the Board as an independent and impartial member without the threat of retaliation or removal for discharging their duties free from political or partisan influence. It would be a disservice to our nation’s freight rail network if I did not,” Primus said in a statement. “Our country’s supply chain demands that the Board be independent and transparent. Congress mandated it 138 years ago. Failure to do so will negatively affect the network: railroads, shippers, and rail labor alike, disrupting the supply chain and ultimately injecting instability into our nation’s economy. This is dangerous, and wrong, and cannot be allowed to happen.”
Trump appointed Primus to the board in 2020 and subsequently for a full term in 2022. His current term on the board was set to expire on Dec. 31, 2027. He served as chairman from May 2024 to January 2025. Primus was the lone member of the STB to vote against the 2023 Canadian Pacific-Kansas City Southern merger. His dismissal came four weeks after Union Pacific (NYSE: UNP) and Norfolk Southern (NYSE: NSC) announced their intent to merge in an $85 billion deal that would create the first U.S. transcontinental railroad.
Primus’s lawsuit — filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against the president, STB Chairman Patrick Fuchs, and the STB — says the president unlawfully removed him from office. Fuchs and the STB violated the law, the suit alleges, by “effectuating this removal and preventing Mr. Primus from exercising his duties as an STB member.”
Democracy Forward, a non-profit legal services activist, and Justice Legal Strategies are representing Primus.
“President Trump continues to target members of independent boards, without cause, in violation of the law. Congress made clear when creating the Surface Transportation Board that the agency should be independent and above politics. The Trump-Vance administration’s firing of Robert Primus ignores these limits on executive power. Democracy Forward is committed to supporting his efforts to continue his important work as a member of the Surface Transportation Board,” Democracy Forward Chief Executive Skye Perryman said in a statement.
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