The Trump administration on Thursday asked the Supreme Court to clear the way for the removal of a Democrat the president fired from the Federal Trade Commission, as he continues to try to seize control of the federal bureaucracy.
Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter was reinstated this week to her role at the consumer protection and antitrust enforcement agency after a divided appeals court found she was fired “without cause.”
President Trump has moved aggressively to take control of independent agencies that regulate companies and workplaces by firing Democratic members of the National Labor Relations Board, Merit Systems Protection Board and Consumer Product Safety Commission.
The administration has separately asserted power to fire members of the Federal Reserve, targeting Lisa Cook, a Fed governor, who is fighting the legality of her dismissal.
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority has repeatedly permitted the president to remove regulators at other independent agencies while litigation continues. Those orders have prompted sharp opposition from the three liberal justices, who say the moves are at odds with statutes passed by Congress to protect such officials from removal without cause.
The majority’s previous orders in response to Mr. Trump’s emergency requests suggest the court may overturn a 90-year-old legal precedent that has guarded the independence of regulatory agencies, including the Federal Trade Commission.
In Ms. Slaughter’s case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit cited that 1935 ruling, Humphrey’s Executor v. U.S., in finding that Mr. Trump had fired her without citing the required “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.”
The president’s lawyers have told the Supreme Court that Mr. Trump must be able to put his own people in place to carry out his policies and said they would seek to overturn Humphrey’s Executor.
The Trump administration’s solicitor general, D. John Sauer, told the justices on Thursday that the lower courts got it wrong in the current F.T.C. matter and should have followed the Supreme Court’s previous rulings allowing Mr. Trump to remove regulators.
“The lower courts have once again ordered the reinstatement of a high-level officer wielding substantial executive authority whom the President has determined should not exercise any executive power, let alone significant rule-making and enforcement powers,” the administration said in its filing Thursday.
In addition to Ms. Slaughter, Mr. Trump dismissed a second Democrat, Alvaro Bedoya. Mr. Bedoya initially challenged his firing but later resigned, citing financial reasons.
The F.T.C. has been led only by Republicans since March.
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