Supreme Court Lets Trump Fire Independent Officials
The Supreme Court allowed President Donald Trump on Monday to fire a member of the Federal Trade Commission, upending a 90-year-old precedent and greatly expanding the president's authority over historically independent federal agencies.
The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that Trump can fire Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter—and similar independent board members by extension—meaning Trump can broadly fire employees that have historically enjoyed greater insulation from political interference.
Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter sued the Trump administration over the president’s decision to fire her, arguing it violated longstanding court precedent that keeps presidents from firing members of independent boards without just cause.
The court ruled those “for cause” protections are “contrary” to the Constitution’s separation of powers and that presidents have ultimate control over such federal officials, writing, “To remain accountable to the President, those officers must be removable by the President.”
The Supreme Court ruled in 1935 in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States that members of independent boards can only be fired due to major issues with their job performance, in order to preserve their independence from political interference.
Justices overturned that longstanding precedent Monday, arguing Humphrey’s Executor “has not withstood the test of time” and “has for decades been a result in search of a rationale.”
Trump hailed the ruling as a "BIG WIN" on Truth Social on Monday, saying it was "such an Honor to be the sitting President who won this Historic and Unprecedented Ruling."
“Neither Congress nor the courts may saddle [the president] with those with whom he cannot work,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in his opinion for the court’s majority Monday. “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.”
Liberal-leaning Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Ketanji Brown Jackson and Elena Kagan dissented from the court’s opinion Monday. “Today, this Court undoes centuries of political practice and concludes that all three branches of Government have been acting in open defiance of the Constitution all this time. Its conclusion is wrong,” Sotomayor wrote in her dissent, arguing the court’s ruling “gives the President a power unknown even to the English Crown against which the Founders revolted.”
What the broader impact of the court’s ruling will be. Experts argued before the court’s ruling Monday that a decision in favor of board members’ independence was essential to ensure stability for the country, by ensuring key agencies that require stability and officials with high-level expertise are free from political interference. To rule in Trump’s favor “would in many cases jeopardize public safety and infrastructure, the structural integrity of government, and economic stability,” a coalition of independent board members and scholars argued in a brief to the court.
This case is distinct from a similar challenge before the Supreme Court this term, in which Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook separately protested against Trump’s decision to fire her. Trump announced his intention to fire Cook in August over alleged issues with her personal mortgage, which she has denied, but she has remained at the Fed as courts have blocked the firing while her litigation moves forward. Both cases raise similar issues around the president’s authority to fire independent board members, but the Supreme Court ruled in Cook’s favor Monday, finding Trump did not give Cook enough opportunity to protest her firing. Justices had previously suggested they hold the Federal Reserve to a higher standard of independence than other agencies and have been more skeptical of Trump’s firing of Cook than other members of independent boards, which was reflected in Monday’s rulings. “Monetary policy should not be subject to political interference,” Roberts wrote for the court’s majority.
The Supreme Court’s ruling comes after justices had already allowed Trump to fire multiple independent board members even before it decided the fate of the Humphrey’s Executor precedent, including officials on the National Labor Relations Board, Merit Systems Protection Board and Consumer Product Safety Commission. The Humphrey’s Executor ruling in the 1930s was based on President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s firing of Federal Trade Commissioner William Humphrey. Humphrey died a year after the decision, and his estate sued the federal government for back pay, arguing he was unlawfully fired because it wasn’t for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office”—which justices agreed with. Justices have historically upheld Humphrey’s Executor, and the Supreme Court hadn’t said much about the precedent in recent months, even as it allowed Trump to fire officials despite the longstanding ruling. The last major case that dealt with the precedent came in 2020, when the court ruled the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was not covered under the heightened standard for firing federal officials.