under Federal Trade Commission Act (FTCA) Act of 1914, the President may remove FTC commissioners only “for incompetence, neglect of duty, or impropriety in office.” Supreme Court 1935 Port Humphrey v. United States The ruling interpreted the FTCA to mean that the president cannot remove an FTC commissioner for any other reason, such as a disagreement over policy.
The justices ripped up that precedent with Monday’s 6-3 decision Trump is against slaughter, Which I found “The FTC’s ruling on warranted removal conflicts with the Constitution’s separation of powers.”
Chief Justice John Roberts joined fellow conservatives Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett — the last three Trump appointees — in the majority, while liberal justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson defected.
In presenting the court’s opinion, Roberts wrote:Humphrey In short, the framework has not stood the test of time.”
“We have long ago abandoned the idea that there are some powers that are only partially executive,” the Chief Justice emphasized. “It’s now forty years since we’ve done this Recognized The Federal Trade Commission exercises executive power, and did so even in 1935, when… Humphrey Decide.”
“Practice,” Slaughter and officials at the independent executive agencies wrote pResident Authority, not their own, and therefore they must be accountable to him.”
“At this point, it’s all that’s left of Humphrey He added: “It is her observation that an agency that ‘exercises no part of executive authority’ should not fall under the impeachment rule.” Humphrey“We’re canceling it.”
As I did last week with Mullen vs. to the other sidea 6-3 ruling that affirmed Trump’s deadly policy of barring people legally seeking asylum from entering the United States, Sotomayor took the rare step of reading her dissent in slaughter From the bench.
“Today, this court overturns centuries of political practice and concludes that all three branches of government have been acting in clear defiance of the Constitution this entire time. Its conclusion is wrong,” she asserted. “The text of the Constitution, along with its history, the long-standing practices of the political branches, and the precedents of this Court, make clear that Congress may limit the grounds for which the heads of committees like the FTC can be removed by the president.”
She continued: “By ruling otherwise, the Court gives the President a power unknown even to the English Crown against which the Founders revolted, and elevates him above its previously co-equal branches by transforming the duty of care to faithfully execute the laws into a license to act in defiance of those same laws.”
“If nothing else, a doctrine I decided to stand upwhich today’s decision urgently rejects, should have made this case a very easy one HumphreySotomayor added, referring to the Latin legal term that means “to stand by matters established” or precedent.
In response to the ruling, Congressman Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, said: He said Which “Today’s decision is in Trump is against slaughter It takes a wrecking ball to a 90-year-old pillar of American law and to Congress’s power to create independent, specialized agencies that serve the will of the American people as expressed in federal law rather than the eccentric political agenda of a single president.
“By eliminating Congress’s authority to prevent the president from firing leaders of independent agencies at whim, the court’s right-wing majority gave President Trump sweeping new power to purge Senate-confirmed commissioners of the FTC and other independent agencies for no reason other than personal loyalty, political obedience, or refusal to bend the law to the president’s personal will,” Raskin added. “This resolution calls for Presidential control over the independent agencies created by Congress to protect people from corporate fraud, financial corruption, attacks on workers’ rights, and other abuses of concentrated economic and political power.”
Several civil society groups and constitutional experts also expressed concern about Monday’s ruling, which comes on the heels of previous Supreme Court assertions to expand executive power in cases including Trump against the United States. Roberts wrote for the 6-3 majority in the 2024 case that the president had immunity from prosecution for all “official acts” — which Sotomayor said in her dissent made him “monarch above the law.”
“Independent agencies are the guardians of American consumers, workers and investors,” said Robert Weissman, co-chair of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen. He said to Trump is against slaughter. “They have held wealthy corporations who rip off hardworking Americans accountable and forced dangerous products off the market. And after President Trump has stripped most independent agencies of their independence, he has effectively politicized and weaponized them, including agencies like the FTC and FCC, to the detriment of ordinary Americans.”
In the first issue, a group dedicated to reducing the influence of money in politics, Vice President of Advocacy Alex Fraser He said “Today, the Supreme Court gave the green light to further abuses of presidential power and stripped independent commissions of their independence.”
He added, “The ruling opens the door wide for more government decisions based on the president’s whims and self-interests.” “Not only does this ruling undermine the Constitution’s clear barriers against executive overreach, it also violates the court’s prerogatives. Historical precedent to support removal of the FTC livelihood.”
Leah Greenberg, co-executive director of the pro-democracy group Indivisible, issued a statement He described the ruling as “shocking but unfortunately not surprising.”
“John Roberts and the MAGA majority are willing to torch history, precedent, and any established constitutional principle in order to give Trump more power with less oversight,” she said. “This shameless, undemocratic, and corrupt partisanship must be investigated, the judges must be held accountable, and the court must be reformed to weaken the current anti-constitutional majority.”
Brett Edkins, managing director of policy and affairs at the anti-corruption organization Stand Up America He said The ruling “opens the door to the king’s powers to oust independent oversight bodies and install loyalists throughout the government” –He lamented That “the MAGA Supreme Court just struck down a century of law to give more power to Donald Trump.”
He continued: “Trump could not find a legal reason to fire a member of an independent agency, so he ignored the law, fired them anyway, and turned to his allies on the Supreme Court to reward his egregious abuses of executive power.” “His followers in court are bound.”
“Today’s ruling gives Trump sweeping authority to purge independent oversight bodies and appoint loyalists throughout the US government who will be accountable to him alone,” Edkins added.
Republicans have long sought repeal Humphrey. Project 2025 – the Heritage Foundation-led blueprint for far-right reform of the federal government –Calls In order to overturn the ruling.
Trump welcomed Monday’s decision, saying: mail on his Truth Social Network claiming he personally “won” the ruling.
Monday’s decision means Trump will now be able to fire on the leaders of agencies including the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the National Labor Relations Board, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the US Postal Service.
But not the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. That’s because in a separate but related ruling issued Monday, the justices rejected Trump’s attempt to oust Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, finding 5-4 in Trump vs. Cook That his attempt to fire her did not comply with the Federal Reserve Removal Protection Act for some reason.
“The court’s decision in slaughter It is even more strange in light of… Trump vs Cook. “There, the court rightly rejected President Trump’s unlawful attempt to remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook without sufficient cause, due process, or judicial review,” Raskin said in his statement.
While acknowledging that “central bank independence is extremely important to the American economy,” Raskin asserted that “Congress’s constitutional provisions on the necessity of institutional independence should be equally important in the Federal Trade Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the National Labor Relations Board, the Federal Communications Commission, and the many other important independent agencies created by Congress to serve the interests of the American people.”
“The Fed’s cuts just show how blatant politics is,” Indivisible’s Greenberg said. slaughter The decision is.
“It is clear that independence only matters when financial markets are at stake, but not when agencies are protecting consumers, workers, or the general public from corporate abuses,” she added.
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