Trump v. Slaughter

The Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914 provides that commissioners may be removed by the President only for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office, protection the Supreme Court upheld in Humphrey's Executor v. United States in 1935. In March 2025 President Trump removed the commission's two Democratic members, including Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, without citing cause, asserting that the Constitution gives him authority to remove executive officers at will. Earlier in 2025 he had also removed members of the National Labor Relations Board and the Merit Systems Protection Board.

A federal district court ordered Slaughter reinstated in July 2025, and the appeals court declined to pause that order. In May 2025, in Trump v. Wilcox, the Supreme Court had already allowed the NLRB and MSPB removals to take effect while litigation continued, noting that the Federal Reserve is a uniquely structured entity with a distinct history. On September 22, 2025, the Court stayed Slaughter's reinstatement and agreed to decide, before the appeals court ruled, whether the FTC's removal protections violate the separation of powers, whether Humphrey's Executor should be overruled, and whether courts may order the reinstatement of removed officials.

The case drew on the line of decisions running from Myers v. United States in 1926 through Seila Law v. CFPB in 2020. The Court heard argument on December 8, 2025, and on June 29, 2026, it ruled 6 to 3, in an opinion by the Chief Justice, that the FTC's removal protection violates the separation of powers, and it overruled Humphrey's Executor. Three justices dissented, warning that the decision places expert agencies under political control and unsettles commissions Congress has built for more than a century. The same day, in Trump v. Cook, the Court treated the Federal Reserve as a special case and refused to let the removal of a Fed governor take effect without proper process. Supporters say the ruling restores the President's constitutional control of the executive branch and makes regulators accountable to voters, while critics say it ends the bipartisan independence that Congress designed for these commissions.