"Good trouble."

Received a letter from POTUS today purporting to remove me as Commissioner & Chair of @FEC. There’s a legal way to replace FEC commissioners-this isn’t it. I’ve been lucky to serve the American people & stir up some good trouble along the way. That’s not changing anytime soon. pic.twitter.com/7voecN2vpj

— Ellen L. Weintraub (@ellenlweintraub.bsky.social) (@EllenLWeintraub) February 6, 2025

Readers of this tweet need to remember that "good trouble" is a stock phrase, not some impish creation of Weintraub's. It's serious. As Grok tells us: "good trouble" was used by John Lewis, the civil rights leader and Congressman, to describe his experience participating in protests and civil disobedience.

I can see that some people are reading her tweet to mean that she's refusing to leave, but you don't need to read it that way. On the text alone, I would say she might be abiding by his demand that she leave, even though she also wants to say that he did not use the proper method. Is she going to stay where she's been told to leave?  The reference to "good trouble" might suggest that she is, but it's in a sentence written in the past tense: "I’ve been lucky...."

From the NYT article on the subject:

“Congress explicitly, and intentionally, created the F.E.C. to be an independent, bipartisan federal agency whose commissioners are confirmed by Congress,” said Trevor Potter, a former commissioner and chairman of the commission].... “As the only agency that regulates the president, Congress intentionally did not grant the president the power to fire F.E.C. commissioners.”...

I think Potter means to say the President can't fire her at will, but he can fire her for cause. That's what Weintraub means by "There's a legal way." The relevant statute says: "Commissioners may be removed by the President only for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office."

Is there cause? The NYT says: 

Ms. Weintraub was the chief architect of a novel strategy to further paralyze the commission in partisan deadlocks in order to compel enforcement of the nation’s election laws through the courts. She previously described it as a last resort after years of enforcement efforts being stymied by the three Republicans on the commission....

The internal link goes to a 2021 NYT article, "Democrats’ Improbable New F.E.C. Strategy: More Deadlock Than Ever/Here is the inside story of how Democrats, after a decade of defeats at the nation’s top campaign watchdog, are trying to enforce election laws in part by losing on purpose in federal court." Excerpt:

The chief architect behind the strategy is Ellen L. Weintraub....

Here is what has been happening behind closed doors, according to people familiar with the commission’s private executive sessions: First, the Democrats are declining to formally close some cases after the Republicans vote against enforcement. That leaves investigations officially sealed in secrecy and legal limbo. Then the Democrats are blocking the F.E.C. from defending itself in court when advocates sue the commission for failing to do its job.

Lee E. Goodman, a Republican former F.E.C. chairman who stepped down in 2018, said the tactic amounted to “sandbagging federal judges” by making them believe deadlocked cases are unresolved. “While we can admire it in its creativity, it fundamentally rests on a dishonesty,” he said.

Is that "inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office"?