The U.S. Supreme Court has granted President Donald Trump new powers that will allow him to reshape the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and potentially many similar independent federal agencies by firing commissioners and replacing them with his own appointees. In a 6–3 decision, the Court held that the FTC’s statutory “for-cause” removal protection is unconstitutional and explicitly overruled the 91-year-old precedent Humphrey’s Executor v. United States. The majority concluded that because the FTC exercises executive power, its commissioners must be removable at will by the President.
The Supreme Court’s June 29 ruling in Trump v. Slaughter swept away Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, a 1935 decision upholding a law preventing the president from firing members of the FTC without cause. By allowing agency independence, Humphrey’s has generally been considered a foundation of the modern federal administrative state. By a 6–3 margin, the Court’s conservative justices found that agencies like the FTC wield executive powers and that the statutory provision allowing the president to remove commissioners only for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office” unconstitutionally limits presidential authority. While the opinion directly invalidates the FTC’s removal provision, its reasoning calls into question similar protections at many other multimember commissions, though the Court expressly left offices such as the Federal Reserve and certain non–Article III tribunals for future cases.
The high court’s decision is seen as a victory for conservative supporters of the “unitary executive” theory, which holds that the president should have total control over the executive branch. Under this ruling, principal officers who exercise executive power in agencies under presidential control may not be shielded from at-will removal by broad “for-cause” limits, subject to some historically grounded exceptions the Court declined to disturb.
The majority’s decision was written by Chief Justice John Roberts, who said the Constitution gives the president executive power and the responsibility for faithfully executing U.S. law. He explained that the Constitution’s framers wanted a system with a single Chief Executive “with whom the buck stops,” and that Congress could not fragment that accountability by placing executive power in officials the president cannot remove. Employees and officers of the executive branch exist to assist the president in performing his constitutional duties, Roberts argued, and therefore principal officers exercising executive power must be subject to removal at his discretion.
Dissents and Other Decisions
In her dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the majority’s decision “reshapes our Government. Dozens of independent commissions are now likely to become purely executive agencies, shifting tremendous power over broad swaths of American life into the President’s hands.” She warned that the ruling threatens the independence of agencies like the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Consumer Product Safety Commission, and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission by allowing the President to remove their leadership more freely.
In a separate decision, also issued June 29 and written by Roberts, a divided court ruled that Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook can stay at her job while she challenges Trump’s efforts to fire her over allegations related to her mortgage applications. In that case, the Court found that Cook was not afforded the procedural protections she is entitled to by law and declined to permit her immediate removal, while leaving broader questions about presidential power over the Fed for another day.
Commissioner Removed Without Cause
The high court’s FTC ruling resolves litigation that began after Trump notified Democratic FTC Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter that she was being removed. The letter informing Slaughter of her removal did not cite any statutory grounds and said it was effective immediately.
Slaughter appealed her removal to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, and the judge ordered her reinstatement, relying on Humphrey’s Executor to conclude she could not be removed without cause. The Trump administration asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to pause the lower court’s ruling while it appealed Slaughter’s case. The appeals court denied a stay, holding that the government had no realistic prospect of success because Humphrey’s squarely protected FTC commissioners from removal absent the statutory “for-cause” showing.
The Trump administration then sought emergency relief from the Supreme Court, which froze the district court’s order while it considered the appeal. By staying the order requiring that Slaughter remain in office, the high court effectively allowed her removal to stand during its review.
FTC Unquestionably Exercises Executive Power
The FTC currently enforces and administers roughly 80 statutes covering almost every facet of the nation’s economy, Roberts wrote. The tasks it undertakes—promulgating binding rules, investigating companies, enforcing statutes through administrative adjudications, and filing civil suits on behalf of the United States—are “the very essence of ‘execution’ of the law,” which is the president’s constitutional role.
Roberts emphasized that the FTC not only investigates businesses to ensure compliance with rules and statutes, it also enforces those rules and statutes and may impose monetary penalties to secure obedience to its orders. Those enforcement powers, he said, are executive in nature. The FTC also has authority to bring civil actions in federal court seeking injunctions, penalties, and other remedies, and the discretionary power to seek judicial relief on behalf of the United States lies at the core of executive authority.
“The FTC unquestionably exercises executive power, and must therefore be controlled by the Chief Executive, in whom such power is vested,” Roberts concluded. “It follows, then, that Slaughter served as the President’s subordinate at the FTC—and that the President was entitled to cut her tenure short.”
Gorsuch: Majority Gives President New Powers
Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote a separate concurrence that agreed the President must be able to remove principal officers at will but stressed the broader implications of the decision. He noted that independent agencies wield not only executive law-enforcement powers but also “vast legislative and judicial powers,” effectively allowing them to make rules and decide disputes under those rules. After this ruling, he warned, the President can effectively exercise all of those powers through control over agency leadership.
“It’s a development that raises important questions, not least these: Would Congress have delegated so much power, including legislative and judicial power, to independent agencies had it known that the President would come to control them? How will Congress respond now—if realistically it can? And what, if anything, will this Court do about it?” Gorsuch asked. He suggested that fully addressing those concerns may require the Court to revisit doctrines governing delegation of legislative and judicial power to agencies in future cases.
