The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that President Trump lawfully fired Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter, overturning a 91-year-old precedent that had shielded independent regulatory agencies from direct presidential control. The decision dramatically expands executive power over more than two dozen federal bodies that oversee everything from workplace discrimination to product safety, while a separate ruling carved out protection for the Federal Reserve.
Story Highlights
- The Supreme Court overturned Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, a 1935 precedent that protected independent agency commissioners from removal without cause.
- The ruling allows Trump to fire members of agencies including the FTC, National Labor Relations Board, and Consumer Product Safety Commission at will.
- In a separate 5-4 decision issued the same day, the court ruled Trump could not remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, preserving the central bank’s independence.
What Happened
The case, Trump v. Slaughter, arose after President Trump fired Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter in March 2025 without citing any of the specific causes, inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance, that federal law has required for FTC commissioner removals since the agency’s creation in 1914. Trump instead told Slaughter that her continued service was inconsistent with his administration’s priorities. Slaughter, a Democratic appointee originally named to the commission in 2018 and renominated by President Biden for a term set to run through 2029, sued for reinstatement, citing the Supreme Court’s 1935 decision in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States.
That earlier ruling, which arose from President Franklin Roosevelt’s attempt to fire an FTC commissioner over ideological disagreements, had established that agencies performing quasi-judicial and quasi-legislative functions could be shielded by Congress from unrestricted presidential removal power. Lower courts, including a federal district court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, both ruled in Slaughter’s favor, citing that precedent directly.
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority, in an opinion authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, reversed those rulings and explicitly overturned Humphrey’s Executor. Roberts wrote that the FTC exercises executive power and must therefore be controlled by the president, declaring that subordinates who exercise presidential power are subject to removal at will. Justice Neil Gorsuch, in a concurring opinion, wrote that independent agencies are “not so independent after all.”
In a related but separate case decided the same day, the court ruled 5-4 that Trump could not remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook from her position, preserving a degree of insulation for the central bank even as it stripped protections from other regulatory bodies. Solicitor General D. John Sauer had urged the justices to eliminate Humphrey’s Executor entirely, arguing it created an unaccountable “headless fourth branch” of government.
Why It Matters
The ruling fundamentally reshapes the structure of American regulatory government, extending far beyond the FTC to more than two dozen multimember agencies, including the National Labor Relations Board, the Merit Systems Protection Board, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. These bodies regulate significant portions of daily American life, covering workplace discrimination protections, product safety standards, labor disputes, and antitrust enforcement affecting major technology and pharmaceutical companies.
With the ruling in place, Trump has already removed the FTC’s Democratic commissioners, leaving the agency’s leadership composed entirely of Republican appointees. Critics, including former FTC Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya, argue the decision creates a two-tiered system in which the Federal Reserve remains insulated to protect financial markets and Wall Street stability, while agencies protecting consumers from unsafe products or discriminatory employment practices lose their independence from presidential political pressure.
For future presidents of either party, the ruling establishes a durable new baseline of executive authority, allowing any administration to remove commissioners from opposing parties and leave regulatory seats vacant or filled with ideologically aligned appointees, a shift that fundamentally alters how these agencies have operated for nearly a century.
Economic and Global Context
The decision carries direct implications for how regulated industries, including big technology firms, pharmaceutical manufacturers, and consumer goods companies, assess enforcement risk going forward. With commissioners now serving at the president’s pleasure, businesses may increasingly factor political alignment with the White House into their regulatory compliance strategies, potentially altering enforcement patterns across administrations.
Legal analysts note the ruling is likely to prompt further constitutional challenges involving other independent bodies not explicitly addressed in the Slaughter case, including the Securities and Exchange Commission, whose independence has historically been considered essential to stable financial market oversight. The carve-out preserving Federal Reserve independence, by contrast, signals the court’s continued recognition that monetary policy stability requires insulation from short-term political pressure, a distinction with significant implications for interest rate policy and broader economic confidence.
Internationally, the ruling may influence how foreign governments and trading partners perceive the durability and predictability of U.S. regulatory enforcement, particularly for industries such as pharmaceuticals and technology where FTC and other agency rulings have previously shaped global market access.
Implications
For federal agencies, the ruling likely accelerates further leadership turnover as the Trump administration moves to install appointees across the more than two dozen bodies affected by the decision, potentially reshaping enforcement priorities on antitrust, labor, and consumer protection matters.
For Congress, the decision effectively nullifies decades of statutory removal protections that lawmakers built into agency-founding legislation, raising questions about whether new legislative approaches could be crafted to preserve some degree of agency independence within the court’s new framework.
For businesses and consumers, the practical effect will likely unfold gradually as newly configured agencies begin issuing rulings and enforcement decisions that reflect the priorities of the sitting president rather than the more insulated, expert-driven approach the agencies were originally designed to provide.
Sources
Supreme Court cements Trump’s power over agencies long considered independentÂ
