The Supreme Court on Monday cleared the way for President Trump to remove a Federal Trade Commission commissioner and agreed to resolve long-standing constitutional questions about White House authority over independent agencies.
In an unsigned emergency order, the justices said they would permit the dismissal of Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter while the case proceeds. They also agreed to hear arguments in December, signaling that the Court is prepared to revisit—and possibly overturn—a 1935 ruling that limited presidential authority over the FTC and similar commissions.
Trump had removed Ms. Slaughter, a Democratic commissioner, earlier this year, contending that the statutory protections shielding her from removal without cause infringed on the president’s constitutional duty to ensure faithful execution of the laws. The FTC, which enforces consumer-protection and antitrust rules, is structured with staggered terms and partisan balance requirements that in practice have limited presidential control.
At the center of the case is Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, the New Deal-era decision that upheld Congress’s power to restrict the president from removing commissioners for policy reasons. Critics have long argued that the ruling entrenched an unaccountable “fourth branch” of government, weakening democratic accountability in regulatory policy.
The Court said it would consider whether those removal protections improperly constrain the president’s constitutional role, and whether courts may block a president from ousting an agency official in the first place.
Justice Elena Kagan, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented. She warned that the majority’s order effectively gives the president full authority over agencies that Congress had attempted to insulate from partisanship. “Until the deed is done, Humphrey’s controls,” she wrote.
The case, Trump v. Slaughter, is the latest in a series in which the Court has allowed the president to remove officials from independent boards despite statutory language to the contrary. Supporters of the Court’s actions say the steps are necessary to restore clarity to constitutional structure and ensure that those wielding executive power remain accountable to the elected president and the outcome of democratic elections.
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