Watch the video, Trump v. Slaughter Supreme Court ruling explained, to follow the story from npr.org.

According to the article, Supreme Court cements Trump's power over agencies long considered independent, the U.S. Supreme Court recently 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 (FTC) member Rebecca Kelly Slaughter without cause was lawful.

Since its creation of the 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; instead, she was merely informed that 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 Longstanding Precedent

The Court's decision marks a final blow to Humphrey's Executor. 

"If anything more is left of Humphrey's, the Court overrules it," Roberts 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 Other Agencies Is 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 non-Article III courts, such as the U.S. Tax Court, and the Federal Reserve Board of Governors as examples of such offices, not agencies such as the EEOC.

In an interview last fall with National Public Radio, 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.'"

Discussion Questions

  1. Explain the Humphrey’s Executor rule.

    The Humphrey’s Executor Rule originates from the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1935 decision in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States. In this case, the Supreme Court held that Congress may limit the president’s ability to remove officials of independent regulatory agencies when those officials perform quasi‑legislative or quasi‑judicial functions rather than purely executive ones. 

    In the case, the Court ruled that President Franklin Roosevelt could not fire a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) commissioner merely over policy disagreements because the Federal Trade Commission Act (FTCA) allowed removal only for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” 

    This established the principle that leaders of certain independent agencies can be protected from at‑will presidential removal, shaping the modern administrative state for decades until the rule was overturned recently in Trump v. Slaughter.

  2. Explain the basis for the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Trump v. Slaughter.

    In Trump v. Slaughter, the Supreme Court held that the FTS’s statutory “for‑cause” removal protections unconstitutionally infringed on the president’s Article II (i.e., executive) authority, concluding that Congress cannot restrict the president’s ability to remove executive officers who exercise executive power. The Court reasoned that the Constitution vests the entire executive power in the president, who must be able to supervise and remove subordinates to ensure faithful execution of the laws; therefore, the FTC’s limits—allowing removal only for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance”—violated separation‑of‑powers principles.

    In your author’s opinion, the majority’s decision in Trump v. Slaughter is flawed in terms of its characterization of the FTC as an executive agency, and therefore subject to ultimate control by the U.S. president as the “chief executive” of the United States government.

    The FTC also performs a host of quasi-legislative and quasi-judicial functions. Its quasi‑legislative functions involve issuing rules and regulations that implement and clarify the policies Congress has embedded in the FTC Act—essentially carrying legislative standards into effect through rulemaking and policy guidance. Its quasi‑judicial functions involve acting as an adjudicative body: the FTC investigates potential unfair or deceptive practices, issues complaints, conducts administrative hearings, and renders decisions that function like judicial determinations, with its orders subject to review in federal courts. These additional roles—rulemaking and adjudication—were central to the Supreme Court’s characterization of the FTC as performing duties “predominantly quasi‑judicial and quasi‑legislative” rather than purely executive, prior to the Trump v. Slaughter decision. 

  3. If the president of the United States can fire members of “independent” federal administrative agency at will, how can the agency or its members truly be independent?
    This question lies at the heart of both the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1935 decision in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States and its 2026 decision in Trump v. Slaughter.

    In your author’s opinion, federal administrative agencies and their personnel cannot truly be independent if the U.S. president can fire at will, regardless of who sits in the Oval Office. There is a reason that independent agencies were established as independent—So that their personnel could exercise their expertise, in advancement of the interests of the American people, without fear of political reprisal or retribution.