The Supreme Court’s stay order in Trump v. Wilcox confirms that the Court is poised to rethink the precedents that govern the removal of federal officers. If so, the Court should rethink a central premise from scratch.

In the Wilcox stay order, the Supreme Court treated the validity of removal protections as a binary question: whether “the NLRB and MSBP exercise considerable executive power.” But even if an agency exercises considerable executive power, it does not follow that every form of removal protection is invalid. At a minimum, Congress can establish removal protections that are designed to secure the faithful execution of federal laws. And the formulations that Congress typically uses to establish removal protections—such as provisions requiring that removal be for “cause,” “neglect of duty,” or “malfeasance in office”—are readily interpreted to accomplish that legitimate congressional objective.

Consider this simple hypothetical. Congress enacts a law requiring a department head to distribute federal funds to every state in accordance with a statutory formula that leaves the officer with no discretion. Congress anticipates, however, that a President might instruct the officer to disregard that statutory mandate and distribute funds only to states controlled by the President’s political party. So Congress specifies in the statute that the officer cannot be removed for complying with the mandate to follow the statutory formula. Surely, that removal protection does not interfere with any legitimate exercise of a President’s executive power. Instead, it promotes compliance with Article II’s requirement that the laws be “faithfully executed.”

If you are with me so far, we can take the hypothetical further. In their opinions addressing the nondelegation doctrine and the major questions doctrine, the Justices in the Wilcox majority have said that Congress must or ordinarily does decide major policy questions itself, rather than give discretion to an Executive Branch officer to resolve major questions. Under the logic that I sketched out in the simple hypothetical, Congress should be able to specify that an officer’s compliance with a statute’s major directives is not cause for the officer’s removal. Likewise, if Congress chooses to dictate policy on minor questions, Congress should be free to prohibit an officer’s removal for compliance with a statute’s minor dictates as well as its major ones. In each of these scenarios, the removal protection prevents a President from seizing legislative power through executive orders that instruct officers to execute an Act of Congress faithlessly.

I do not mean to suggest that removal protections are valid only to the extent that they promote the faithful execution of federal laws. There may be additional reasons to uphold removal protections, such as because an agency’s functions are largely adjudicative or because an agency has a unique structure and distinctive historical tradition. My point here is that any removal protection should be upheld to the extent that it promotes the faithful execution of federal law. And the terms that Congress uses to establish removal protections—which often are described by the shorthand “for cause”—should be interpreted to prohibit the President from removing an officer because of the officer’s compliance with a statutory mandate.

Some may wonder if my proposed approach puts any meaningful limits on a President’s ability to remove officers who have removal protection. I think it does. At a minimum, my approach requires a President to identify a nonprohibited reason for such an officer’s removal. Thus, a President could not fire protected officials without giving any reason, as occurred in Wilcox. In addition, a conclusory pronouncement that the President has “lost confidence” in an officer should not suffice, absent a factual basis. Notably, the fact that an officer dutifully implemented the priorities of a prior President does not by itself show that the officer is unwilling to implement the priorities of a new President. Finally, Congress can include procedural requirements, such as the hearing that is required before an NLRB member can be removed, to help ensure that officers are not removed for reasons that Congress has authority to prohibit.

Alisa Klein is an Associate Professor at Wilmington University School of Law who formerly worked as a career appellate litigator for the Department of Justice.