The justices seem likely to allow the president to fire a Democratic member of the Federal Trade Commission, a ruling that could limit or overturn a nine-decade-old precedent that insulated some agencies from political influence by the executive.
December 8, 2025
By Justin Jouvenal
The Supreme Court on Monday appeared poised to allow President Donald Trump to fire a leader of the Federal Trade Commission, a ruling that could limit or overturn a 90-year-old precedent that curbs executive power to dismiss the heads of agencies Congress set up to be independent.
A ruling in favor of Trump’s position has been widely expected by legal experts because the justices have been chipping away for years at the precedent, known as Humphrey’s Executor. Many of the Supreme Court’s conservative justices have expressed support for an idea known as unitary executive theory, which holds that the Constitution gives the president broad authority to fire officials and that Congress cannot limit it.
During arguments Monday, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. referred to Humphrey’s Executor as a “dried husk.” The contemporary FTC bears little resemblance to the one that existed at the time of the high court’s 1935 ruling that insulated its commissioners from removal by the president without cause, because it now exercises significant executive powers, he said.
Conservative Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh said independent agencies lack accountability.
“I think broad delegations to unaccountable independent agencies raise enormous constitutional and real-world problems for individual liberty,” Kavanaugh said.
A decision to strike down Humphrey’s Executor and allow the president to fire Democrat Rebecca Slaughter from the FTC could usher in one of the largest changes to the structure of the federal government in decades. It would hand Trump a major victory in his quest to exert tighter control over the federal bureaucracy and concentrate power in the White House. A ruling in the case is expected by June or July.
The court’s three liberal justices expressed alarm at the idea of handing the president unfettered control over roughly two dozen agencies that regulate a range of areas, including product safety, elections and nuclear energy, saying it could politicize work that Congress deemed should be based on expertise and technical knowledge. The agencies are run by bipartisan, multimember commissions that serve staggered terms.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor told Solicitor General D. John Sauer, “You are asking us to destroy the structure of government,” while Justice Elena Kagan added, “You end up with massive, unchecked power in the hands of the president.”
“Independent agencies exist because Congress has deemed some issues should be handled by nonpartisan experts,” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said. “Having a president come in and fire all the scientists and the doctors and the economists and the PhDs and replacing them with loyalists … is actually not in the best interest of the citizens of the United States.”
Sauer told the justices that striking down Humphrey’s Executor would make federal agencies more accountable to voters who elect the president, and that fears that the structure of government would be undermined are overblown. He said the alphabet soup of regulatory agencies is “a headless fourth branch insulated from political accountability and democratic control.”
The justices spent much of the arguments probing the ramifications and possible limits of expanding the president’s power. Kavanaugh said he had concerns about the president attempting to remove members of the Federal Reserve, which sets interest rates and has a commanding role in guiding the economy. Next month, the justices will examine the legality of Trump’s efforts to fire Democrat Lisa Cook from the Fed.
The justices also quizzed Sauer about whether ruling for the president would allow Trump to remove lower-level members of independent agencies and some government workers with civil service protections. Sauer indicated he thought the president would have such power, marking a dramatic shift.
Trump fired Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya, the only Democrats on the five-member FTC, in March, as part of an aggressive campaign to remove liberal leaders from independent agencies such as the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) that were set up to be insulated from political interference. Trump has often derided bureaucrats as part of a “deep state,” an alleged secret network of nonelected officials working to shape the government and society, stymieing his agenda. Slaughter and Bedoya attended the arguments Monday.
The law creating the FTC says presidents can remove commissioners only for “inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in office,” but Trump gave no reason for dismissing Slaughter and Bedoya. Slaughter sued, saying that violated the FTC statute.
A federal judge agreed in July, citing Humphrey’s Executor, which affirmed that Congress could set up independent, nonpartisan agencies whose leaders could be fired only for cause. The decision stemmed from President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s attempts to dismiss an FTC commissioner, William Humphrey, over political differences related to the New Deal and other issues.
An appeals court upheld the decision in Slaughter’s case before the Trump administration appealed it to the Supreme Court. Roberts paused Slaughter’s reinstatement in September so the high court could weigh the administration’s appeal.
Many in the Trump administration support the unitary executive theory. The idea is that the president, as the only elected official in the executive branch, exercises all of its authority. Other officials are merely extensions of the president’s power, the theory holds, and they therefore can be removed at will.
Slaughter was unanimously approved by the Senate when Trump initially nominated her to the FTC in 2018 and again when President Joe Biden renominated her in 2023. The agency works on antitrust and consumer protection issues.
Amit Agarwal, Slaughter’s attorney, argued that the FTC’s removal protections were consistent with the separation of powers, saying Congress has long created independent agencies guided by multimember commissions.
“Multimember agencies have been part of our story since 1790,” Agarwal told the justices.
But the justices have rejected similar arguments in recent years. In the most significant recent case, they ruled in 2020 that the law creating removal protections for the director of the powerful Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) was unconstitutional because it violated the separation of powers.
The CFPB is legally different from the FTC because it is run by a single official instead of a multimember board. Many other independent agencies like the Federal Communications Commission, the CPSC and the Securities and Exchange Commission share the FTC’s structure and could be affected by the ruling in Slaughter’s case.
In temporary rulings during the opening months of Trump’s second term, the justices have also allowed the president to fire members of the NLRB, the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) and the CPSC without cause, despite laws saying otherwise, while the legal challenges to the moves play out.
“Because the Constitution vests the executive power in the President,” the majority wrote in a decision blessing the NLRB and MSPB firings, “he may remove without cause executive officers who exercise that power on his behalf, subject to narrow exceptions recognized by our precedents.”
Those rulings have often drawn strong pushback from the court’s liberals.
Humphrey’s Executor is widely considered a landmark case because it led to the creation of the modern regulatory state. The idea behind independent agencies has been that their decision-making would be predicated on scientific evidence, technical knowledge and expertise rather than political considerations.
Consumer advocates worry that the demise of Humphrey’s Executor would leave Americans less protected, since presidents could pressure agencies to craft regulations to appease big business, donors or political allies.
Erin Witte, director of consumer protection at the Consumer Federation of America, pointed to the CPSC.
“These are commissioners that deal with kids’ products, baby-safe sleep things,” Witte said. “The last thing that we want is for industry to come in and insert their favorite folks at the commission.”
The CFPB is legally different from the FTC because it is run by a single official instead of a multimember board. Many other independent agencies like the Federal Communications Commission, the CPSC and the Securities and Exchange Commission share the FTC’s structure and could be affected by the ruling in Slaughter’s case.
In temporary rulings during the opening months of Trump’s second term, the justices have also allowed the president to fire members of the NLRB, the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) and the CPSC without cause, despite laws saying otherwise, while the legal challenges to the moves play out.
“Because the Constitution vests the executive power in the President,” the majority wrote in a decision blessing the NLRB and MSPB firings, “he may remove without cause executive officers who exercise that power on his behalf, subject to narrow exceptions recognized by our precedents.”
Those rulings have often drawn strong pushback from the court’s liberals.
Humphrey’s Executor is widely considered a landmark case because it led to the creation of the modern regulatory state. The idea behind independent agencies has been that their decision-making would be predicated on scientific evidence, technical knowledge and expertise rather than political considerations.
Consumer advocates worry that the demise of Humphrey’s Executor would leave Americans less protected, since presidents could pressure agencies to craft regulations to appease big business, donors or political allies.
Erin Witte, director of consumer protection at the Consumer Federation of America, pointed to the CPSC.
“These are commissioners that deal with kids’ products, baby-safe sleep things,” Witte said. “The last thing that we want is for industry to come in and insert their favorite folks at the commission.”
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