The Supreme Court will consider whether removal protections for members of the Federal Trade Commission violate the separation of powers.
The Supreme Court is set to consider a major legal battle Monday involving President Trump’s move to oust a member of the Federal Trade Commission, a case that could expand presidential power over independent agencies that Congress has sought to insulate from political pressure.
The dispute stems from Mr. Trump’s attempt to remove Rebecca Kelly Slaughter from her position at the FTC without cause despite a federal law that allows a president to fire a commissioner only for inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in office.
Now, the Supreme Court will weigh the constitutionality of those removal protections. Also hanging in the balance is a landmark 1935 decision that has allowed Congress to shield members of independent agencies from being removed at will.
The court case, known as Trump v. Slaughter, is the culmination of a yearslong weakening of that New Deal-era ruling in the case Humphrey’s Executor v. United States. In a string of recent decisions, the Supreme Court’s conservative justices have chipped away at that precedent: most recently, the high court invalidated removal protections for leaders of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in 2020 and the Federal Housing Finance Agency in 2021.
But the dispute over Mr. Trump’s firing of Slaughter now gives the Supreme Court the opportunity to overturn that 90-year-old precedent. A ruling in the president’s favor could have significant ramifications for the structure of the federal government and curtail Congress’ power to impose limits on the president’s removal power.
Since he returned to the White House for a second term, Mr. Trump has pushed the bounds of presidential power and moved to oust a host of Democratic-appointed members of independent boards and commissions, including Slaughter.
Appointed to the FTC by Mr. Trump in his first term and reappointed by former President Joe Biden, Slaughter received an email in March with a message from the president informing her that her «continued service on the FTC is inconsistent with my Administration’s priorities.»
Slaughter, like many other agency leaders fired by Mr. Trump, filed a lawsuit arguing that her firing was illegal. When Congress established the FTC in 1914, it said commissioners could be removed only for inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in office.
