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The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday overturned a 91-year-old precedent that has prevented presidents from removing members of independent agencies at will. The decision represents a significant win for the Trump administration and a major expansion of the president’s control over parts of the government once seen as a check on his powers.
In a 6-3 ruling, the court found that President Trump’s March 2025 firing of Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter without cause was lawful.
Since its creation of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in 1914, Congress has held that commissioners can only be fired for “inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in office.” Slaughter was presented with no such reason for her removal, only told her “continued service on the FTC is inconsistent with [the Trump] Administration’s priorities.”
Last summer, a lower court found her firing was unlawful, citing a 1935 landmark decision known as Humphrey’s Executor, a case prompted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s attempted firing of an FTC commissioner over ideological disagreements. 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, the court found, “are neither political nor executive, but predominantly quasi-judicial and quasi-legislative.”
Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote: “Although it is up to the Senate to decide whether to confirm those with whom the President would prefer to work, neither Congress nor the courts may saddle him with those with whom he cannot work. Subordinates who exercise the President’s power are subject to removal by him. Then, and only then, can they remain accountable to the President, and the President to the people.”
The three liberal justices dissented, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor calling the decision “grievously wrong.”
“The Court gives the President a power unknown even to the English Crown against which the Founders revolted, elevating him above his once-coequal branches by transforming a duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed into a license to act in defiance of those very laws,” Sotomayor wrote.
The independence of the Federal Reserve remains intact — for now. The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, can remain in her job until litigation is resolved in the lower courts.
A final blow to a 91-year-old precedent
Thursday’s decision marks a final blow to Humphrey’s Executor.
“If anything more is left of Humphrey’s, the Court overrules it,” Robert wrote in the majority opinion.
During Trump’s first term, the Supreme Court chipped away at the precedent when it let Trump fire the head of another independent agency, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).
In that case, the Supreme Court held that the firing was permissible because the CFPB is run by a single director rather than a multimember board. Chief Justice John Roberts described Humphrey’s Executor as applying only to multimember agencies “that do not wield substantial executive power.”
Now with this latest decision, the conservative majority has found reason to give the president power over multimember agencies, too.
In the majority opinion, Roberts pointed out that the FTC in its present state enforces and administers some 80 statutes that cover nearly every facet of the economy.
“The tasks it undertakes are ‘the very essence of ‘execution’ of the law,'” he wrote.
The ruling essentially turns FTC commissioners into at-will employees, who serve at the pleasure of the president. It also effectively ends Congress’ requirement that the FTC be bipartisan, so that no one party has too much sway.
Congress dictated that no one political party can hold more than three seats on the five-member commission, recognizing the vast influence the FTC has over the lives of everyday Americans.
The agency’s commissioners are antitrust experts, uniquely positioned to keep watch over all kinds of companies — big tech companies, pharmaceutical companies, manufacturers and media companies — ensuring their practices aren’t harming regular people.
Now, going forward, there’s nothing to stop any president from removing commissioners from the opposing party and leaving the seats vacant, which is what Trump has done.
After his firing of two Democratic FTC commissioners last year, the only remaining commissioners are Republicans.
The independence of a multitude of other agencies is also in doubt
The ruling also throws into question the protections afforded to members of a multitude of other federal agencies, including the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Merit Systems Protection Board and the Consumer Product Safety Commission, where Trump has also fired Democratic members.
Like the FTC, those agencies play important roles in the daily lives of Americans, protecting people from discrimination and abuse on the job and unsafe products, including toys.
Congress created those agencies and many others following the Supreme Court’s decision in Humphrey’s Executor, assuming that they would operate with some degree of independence from the White House.
In the majority opinion, Roberts acknowledged that “not all offices created by Congress necessarily come with executive power,” but cited Article III courts and the Federal Reserve Bank as examples of such offices, not agencies such as the EEOC.
In an interview last fall with NPR, Slaughter said it was vital for the Supreme Court to preserve its independence.
“Independence allows the decision-making that is done by these boards and commissions to be on the merits, about the facts, and about protecting the interests of the American people,” she said. “That is what Americans deserve from their government.”
James M. Burnham, an attorney who has served in both Trump administrations, offered the counter view, arguing that Congress’ limits on the president’s removal powers have been unconstitutional from the beginning.
“I don’t think there is such a thing as an independent agency because everything has to be in one of the three branches of government,” he argued. “I don’t think they’ve ever been independent.”
Roberts echoed that view, writing in the majority opinion: “Despite what Humphrey’s may say, independent agencies are not ‘independent’ in the sense that they are free of the President and thus responsive ‘only to the people of the United States.'”
