The Supreme Court appeared ready Monday to overturn a 90-year precedent limiting presidential authority to fire members of independent agencies, with the Court’s conservative majority signaling openness to Solicitor General D. John Sauer’s argument that the Constitution grants presidents unrestricted removal power over all federal officials regardless of congressional protections. At stake is a 90-year precedent limiting the president’s power over independent agencies, specifically the 1935 Humphrey’s Executor decision that has structured American governance for nearly a century.
At issue is whether President Trump can fire Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, whom Trump appointed in 2018, during his first term, to fill a Democratic seat on the Federal Trade Commission. She was told her “continued service on the FTC is inconsistent with [the Trump] Administration’s priorities,” with the White House Office of Presidential Personnel informing her by email in March that she was being removed from office effective immediately.
Congress created the FTC in 1914 as a bipartisan, independent agency tasked with protecting the American economy from unfair methods of competition. By law, the five-member commission can have no more than three members of the same political party, and commissioners can only be fired for “inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in office”. Slaughter had been given no such reason for her removal, demonstrating that Trump fired her purely for political disagreement rather than the statutory grounds Congress specified.
A lower court declared that Slaughter had been unlawfully removed from the FTC and ordered her back to work. The Trump administration appealed that ruling, and in September, the Supreme Court issued an emergency order removing her from her seat until the merits of her case could be heard. Justices voted 6 to 3 along ideological lines to allow her firing to stand — for now.
In that case, called Humphrey’s Executor, the court unanimously held that while the president has the power to remove purely executive officers for any reason, that unlimited power does not extend to agencies like the FTC, whose duties “are neither political nor executive, but predominantly quasi-judicial and quasi-legislative”. The 1935 decision established that Congress possesses constitutional authority to insulate certain agencies from direct presidential control to ensure they exercise independent judgment rather than implementing partisan political agendas.
Following that 1935 decision, Congress went on to create many more multimember, independent agencies whose members likewise can only be removed for cause. Since January, Trump has also removed Democratic members from some of those agencies, including the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Merit Systems Protection Board and the Consumer Product Safety Commission. The systematic purge of Democratic commissioners demonstrates Trump’s determination to eliminate any institutional resistance to his political agenda.
In Slaughter’s case and others, the Trump administration argues that the Supreme Court’s decision in Humphrey’s Executor was flawed, due to a misunderstanding of the FTC’s functions at the time. Sauer contended that the Framers intended presidents to exercise complete control over all federal officials exercising executive power, arguing that independent agencies represent unconstitutional delegation of presidential authority that the Constitution vests exclusively in the chief executive.
Liberal justices pushed back against the Trump administration’s argument that the executive possesses the authority to fire officials at will. “You’re asking us to destroy the structure of government and to take away from Congress its ability to protect its idea that the government is better structured with some agencies that are independent,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor told Solicitor General D. John Sauer.
The court’s conservatives were friendlier to Sauer. Justice Samuel Alito asked Sauer to address Sotomayor’s assertion: “You want to take a moment to address that?” he asked. “The sky will not fall,” Sauer replied. “The entire government will move toward accountability to the people.” The exchange demonstrated the fundamental philosophical divide between justices who view independent agencies as essential constitutional checks versus those who prioritize maximizing presidential control.
Conservative legal scholars celebrate the potential overruling of Humphrey’s Executor as restoring the unitary executive theory that they argue the Constitution’s Vesting Clause mandates. They contend that allowing Congress to insulate agency officials from presidential removal violates separation of powers by fragmenting executive authority among officials the president cannot control, undermining democratic accountability by shielding bureaucrats from electoral consequences.
However, critics warn that eliminating for-cause removal protections would transform independent agencies into partisan weapons that presidents could weaponize against political enemies. The FTC’s authority to investigate anticompetitive business practices, the SEC’s power to prosecute securities fraud, and the NLRB’s jurisdiction over labor disputes would become subject to direct presidential control, allowing chief executives to shield allies from enforcement while targeting opponents.
The ruling’s implications extend far beyond the FTC to potentially dozens of agencies Congress established with for-cause removal protections specifically to ensure they exercise expert judgment free from political interference. The Federal Reserve, Federal Communications Commission, Federal Election Commission, Consumer Product Safety Commission, and numerous other independent agencies could lose the statutory protections that have allowed them to function as technocratic bodies rather than partisan instruments.
Progressive activists view Trump’s systematic removal of Democratic commissioners as confirmation that he intends to eliminate any institutional resistance to his political agenda. The purge of officials who might provide independent oversight or push back against unlawful orders represents authoritarian consolidation of power incompatible with democratic governance, demonstrating why Congress created independent agencies with for-cause removal protections in the first place.
The oral arguments suggested that Chief Justice John Roberts may hold the decisive vote, with his questions exploring whether intermediate positions exist between the Trump administration’s expansive theory and complete preservation of Humphrey’s Executor. Roberts appeared skeptical that the Constitution permits Congress to insulate all multimember agencies from presidential control, but also seemed troubled by implications of allowing presidents to fire commissioners purely for policy disagreements.
As the Court deliberates what could prove one of its most consequential decisions about presidential power and administrative state structure, the question facing the justices is whether the Constitution’s grant of executive power to the president means what unitary executive theorists claim or whether Congress possesses authority to structure agencies in ways that balance presidential accountability with need for expert independence from partisan political pressures. The ruling will determine whether future presidents can consolidate control over federal bureaucracy by eliminating officials who disagree with their policies or whether congressional protections can preserve islands of independence within the executive branch that exercise judgment free from partisan interference.
