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“For the most part the idea of an independent-expert-type agency will be over” if 90-year-old precedent allowing Congress to limit the president's ability to fire independent agency officials is overturned, said Chicago-Kent College of Law Professor Harold Krent. “It's incredibly significant. It gives the president even more powerful control over these agencies.”

“(Attorneys are) thinking, ‘What’s the likelihood they’re going to affirm the decision or they’re going to reverse the decision?'” said Richard Kling, clinical professor at the Chicago-Kent College of Law. “Obviously they thought it was in their advantage to dismiss it.”

“Even the lower courts that have ruled against the president believe that the president is entitled to a fair amount of deference. I don’t think that’s a controversial view. But the (federal) government is taking the position that the president’s decisions in this are completely unreviewable,” said Carolyn Shapiro, founder and co-director of the Chicago-Kent College of Law’s Institute on the Supreme Court of the United States. “I think that’s completely wrong, and it seems unlikely to me that there are five votes for that position, because if there were, they would have already granted a stay.”