The U.S. Supreme Court struck down a 91-year-old legal protection for independent federal agencies in a landmark 6-3 ruling on Monday, holding that President Trump's 2025 firing of FTC Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter was constitutional. The decision overturns Humphrey's Executor, a 1935 precedent that had shielded agency heads from removal without cause, fundamentally reshaping the balance of power between the White House and independent regulators.
The ruling affects a wide range of independent agencies beyond the FTC, including the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Merit Systems Protection Board, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission — all of which saw Democratic members dismissed by Trump in 2025. By removing the for-cause protection, the court effectively turns commissioners at these bodies into at-will employees serving at the president's pleasure.
In a sharp dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, warned that the majority had handed the president "far greater power than ever before" — power, she wrote, that "neither the People, nor Congress, nor the Constitution bestowed upon him."