The Supreme Court agreed Monday to hear a case that will determine whether President Donald Trump can remove members of the Federal Trade Commission without cause, a dispute that could redefine the limits of presidential authority and the independence of federal agencies.
In a brief order, the justices said Trump may remove FTC Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter while the case is pending. Arguments are scheduled for December, and the stay allowing her removal will remain in effect until the court issues a ruling.
The case asks whether statutory protections against removing FTC commissioners violate the separation of powers and whether the court’s 1935 decision upholding such protections should be overturned. It will also examine whether lower federal courts can block removals, as they have in cases involving Trump’s dismissal of Democratic appointees.
The high court’s left wing – Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson – dissented, with Kagan writing that the order effectively gives the president “full control” over independent agencies that Congress intended to shield from political influence.
“He may now remove — so says the majority, though Congress said differently — any member he wishes, for any reason or no reason at all. And he may thereby extinguish the agencies’ bipartisanship and independence,” she wrote.
In reality, presidents appoint political allies to such positions, so they are hardly shielded from ‘political independence.’
Attorney General Pam Bondi praised the Supreme Court’s decision, calling it a “significant” win that reinforces the president’s executive authority.
“This helps affirm our argument that the President, not a lower court judge, has hiring and firing power over executive officials,” Bondi wrote on social media. “We will continue fighting and winning in court to defend President Trump’s agenda.”
The case stems from Trump’s attempt to remove Slaughter. A lower court ruled the move unlawful, citing a 1914 law that restricts removal to cases of inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance, and ordered her reinstated.
Earlier this month, Chief Justice John Roberts temporarily blocked that order while the Supreme Court considered whether to grant emergency relief.
In its appeal, the Trump administration asked the court to quickly review the constitutionality of the FTC’s removal protections before the case proceeds in the appeals court. Slaughter’s attorneys also agreed the issue is ready for Supreme Court review.
The case is the latest in a series of emergency appeals brought to the Supreme Court over the president’s efforts to remove Democratic appointees from independent agencies. Most justices have so far backed Trump’s authority, allowing him to dismiss members of the National Labor Relations Board, the Merit Systems Protection Board, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission despite statutory protections.
These rulings have raised questions about the future of Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, the 1935 precedent that upheld Congress’s power to restrict presidential removals of FTC members. Lower courts have cited that decision in reinstating officials Trump sought to fire, but the growing number of disputes has fueled pressure on the Supreme Court to clarify the scope of presidential removal power.
In a concurring opinion regarding a case involving the removal of three members of the Consumer Product Safety Committee, Justice Brett Kavanaugh warned that “the downsides of delay in definitively resolving the status of the precedent sometimes tend to outweigh the benefits of further lower-court consideration.”
Trump first appointed Slaughter to the FTC in 2018, and she was reappointed by President Joe Biden to a term set to run through 2029.
In March, Trump sought to remove Slaughter, but she sued, arguing that federal law allows dismissal of commissioners only for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance. Lower courts sided with Slaughter and ordered her reinstated, prompting the Trump administration to seek emergency relief from the Supreme Court, CBS News reported.
