Supreme Court’s Staggering Decision – A Century Undone

The Supreme Court building featuring marble columns and a clear blue sky

The Supreme Court may hand President Trump a historic victory by allowing him to fire independent agency commissioners at will, potentially dismantling nearly a century of bipartisan regulatory independence and handing the executive branch sweeping new power over agencies that were designed to operate free from political pressure.

Story Overview

Supreme Court may allow Trump to immediately remove FTC Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, rejecting lower court protections for independent agency officials
Conservative majority signals willingness to overturn Humphrey’s Executor (1935), the foundational precedent protecting agency independence from presidential removal at will
Decision threatens the bipartisan structure of the FTC and other independent agencies, potentially weaponizing them for partisan political purposes
Ruling could expand presidential control over regulatory agencies, undermining Congressional design and institutional checks on executive power
Case reflects broader conservative legal doctrine of “unitary executive theory,” consolidating executive branch authority at the expense of agency independence

Trump Administration Expands Executive Power Over Regulatory Agencies

In March 2025, President Trump issued termination notices to FTC Commissioners Rebecca Kelly Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya, both Democratic appointees, asserting that he possessed the authority to remove them at will as executive officers. This action directly challenged nearly nine decades of legal precedent protecting independent agency commissioners from arbitrary presidential removal. Slaughter and Bedoya immediately filed legal challenges in federal court, arguing that the FTC Act’s “for cause” removal protections were constitutionally valid and that their removal violated those statutory safeguards.

Lower Court Attempts to Preserve Agency Independence Overruled

A federal district court in Washington, D.C., initially sided with Slaughter, issuing an injunction in April-May 2025 that ordered the Trump administration to allow her and Bedoya to return to office while litigation continued. This decision reflected traditional separation-of-powers doctrine: Congress designed the FTC as an independent agency precisely to insulate consumer protection and antitrust enforcement from partisan political interference. However, the Trump administration appealed aggressively, and by May 2025, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority signaled its receptiveness to the administration’s position by staying similar injunctions in related cases involving the National Labor Relations Board and Merit Systems Protection Board.

Supreme Court Clears Path for Presidential Removal Authority

On September 8, 2025, the Supreme Court issued a brief, unsigned order staying Judge Loren AliKhan’s injunction and granting certiorari in Trump v. Slaughter. This decision allowed Trump to remove Slaughter immediately while the case proceeded through full briefing and argument. The Court’s action effectively endorsed the administration’s core legal theory: that FTC commissioners, despite statutory language limiting removal to cases of “cause,” exercise substantial executive power and therefore remain removable at will by the President. Justice Elena Kagan’s dissent warned that the majority’s decision would allow the President to remove agency members “for any reason or no reason at all,” thereby extinguishing the agencies’ bipartisanship and independence.

Humphrey’s Executor Faces Existential Challenge

The case directly threatens Humphrey’s Executor v. United States (1935), the Supreme Court precedent that has protected independent agency commissioners for nearly a century. In that landmark decision, the Court held that Congress could limit presidential removal power over FTC commissioners to cases involving “cause”—such as inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance—thereby preserving agency independence. The Trump administration’s legal theory, grounded in the “unitary executive” doctrine, argues that all executive power flows from the President and that Congress cannot constitutionally insulate agency officials from presidential control. The conservative majority’s willingness to stay the lower court injunction before full argument suggests receptiveness to this theory, potentially signaling the demise of Humphrey’s Executor.

Politicization of Consumer Protection and Antitrust Enforcement

The practical consequences of allowing presidential removal at will would be severe. The FTC, traditionally structured with a 3-2 partisan split, would become a tool of partisan politics. Each administration could replace commissioners to align regulatory policy with its political agenda, undermining long-term regulatory stability and expertise. Consumer protection and antitrust enforcement—functions that require independence and consistency across administrations—would become subject to the political winds of each presidential term. This threatens enforcement against fraud, unfair business practices, and anticompetitive mergers, leaving ordinary Americans vulnerable to corporate misconduct.

Broader Threat to Independent Agencies

A ruling against removal protections would not stop at the FTC. The decision would immediately embolden the Trump administration to remove commissioners at the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, and the National Labor Relations Board. These agencies collectively oversee financial markets, energy infrastructure, communications networks, and labor relations—critical sectors affecting every American’s economic security. Rapid turnover and politicization of these agencies would create regulatory chaos, discourage qualified professionals from serving, and prioritize political loyalty over expertise and institutional integrity.

Conservative Legal Theory Reshapes Separation of Powers

The case reflects a broader conservative legal movement to expand presidential power at the expense of Congressional design and institutional checks. The “unitary executive” theory, advanced by scholars and conservative jurists for decades, argues that the Constitution vests all executive power in the President alone. Under this theory, Congress cannot create truly independent agencies or insulate officials from presidential control. If the Supreme Court embraces this theory fully, it would represent a fundamental restructuring of the administrative state and a dramatic shift in the balance of power toward the executive branch, undermining the separation-of-powers framework that conservatives traditionally championed.