The Supreme Court heard arguments in Trump v. Slaughter on Monday, weighing whether to retain a long-standing limitation on the president’s authority to remove officials at independent federal agencies. Several justices signaled openness to overturning Humphrey’s Executor, the 1935 decision that allows Congress to shield members of multimember commissions such as the Federal Trade Commission from removal except for inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance.
The dispute began after President Trump sought to remove FTC commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter. Solicitor General D. John Sauer urged the justices to discard Humphrey’s Executor, contending the precedent improperly restricts the president’s Article II removal power and enables Congress to create semi-independent agencies that dilute executive control. Sauer described the precedent as outdated and argued it encourages creation of institutional “islands” that operate apart from presidential accountability.
Slaughter’s lawyers defended removal protections as a valid exercise of Congress’s authority to organize government. Attorney Amit Agarwal noted that multimember commissions with limited removal protections have existed since the nation’s early years and that the FTC’s structure has been observed by presidents of both parties for more than a century. He warned that undoing Humphrey’s would unsettle settled expectations and could jeopardize the independence of agencies that make technical, rulemaking and adjudicative decisions.
The court’s three liberal justices—Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson—pressed those themes, stressing potential disruption if Humphrey’s is overturned. Sotomayor warned the challengers were asking the court to upend the government’s structure and blunt Congress’s ability to preserve agency independence. Kagan queried how the administration’s position would apply across the government, pointing to civil service protections and other insulated institutions that exercise a mix of functions. Jackson questioned why the court should infer a constitutional defect where Congress has long exercised authority to create and organize administrative bodies.
Conservative justices signaled greater sympathy for the government’s position. Brett Kavanaugh said expansive delegations to relatively unaccountable agencies create serious constitutional and practical worries about individual liberty. Neil Gorsuch acknowledged the shift of legislative and policymaking power into agencies and suggested that turning such entities fully under presidential control would strengthen arguments for reexamining removal limits. Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas questioned defense counsel about how far Congress’s authority extends—specifically whether the government’s view would permit Congress to convert cabinet departments into protected, multimember commissions.
Agarwal sought to draw boundaries, arguing the Constitution would prevent Congress from converting cabinet-level departments with truly executive, “conclusive and preclusive” powers into insulated commissions. Justices pressed on whether such a line could be administrably drawn and what criteria courts would use to distinguish exclusive presidential powers from ones Congress could entrust to commissions.
Background and context
Humphrey’s Executor carved out an exception to at-will presidential removal for multimember agencies that exercise quasi-legislative or quasi-judicial functions. In recent years the Court’s conservative majority has narrowed that precedent, most notably by invalidating removal protections for the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (2020) and for the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (2021). Trump v. Slaughter gives the court a chance to overturn Humphrey’s completely.
The administration argues the FTC now performs substantial executive functions—enforcing scores of federal statutes and regulating areas from food labeling to competition—and therefore commissioners who execute the law must be removable at the president’s discretion to ensure faithful execution. Slaughter was first appointed to the FTC by Trump, later reappointed by President Biden. In March she received an email saying her continued service was inconsistent with the administration’s priorities; she and another commissioner challenged removals as violating the FTC Act and Supreme Court precedent. A federal district court ordered her reinstated, the D.C. Circuit temporarily allowed her removal and later reinstated her; the Supreme Court agreed to hear the dispute and permitted the president to remove Slaughter while the case proceeds.
Potential consequences
A ruling for the administration could end or curtail removal protections across more than two dozen independent agencies that Congress created to insulate members from political pressure. Supporters of those protections say they reflect a long-standing compromise between branches to preserve independent, expert decision-making in technical or politically sensitive areas. More than 200 House Democrats filed a friend-of-the-court brief arguing that multimember boards protected from at-will removal are a century-old feature enacted and signed by presidents of both parties.
The case arrives amid other high-profile removal disputes. The court has allowed temporary presidential removal of members of agencies such as the National Labor Relations Board and the Merit Systems Protection Board while litigation continues. The administration has also sought to remove a Federal Reserve governor, Lisa Cook; the court has so far let her remain while her separate challenge is pending and will hear that case next month.
At its core, the decision poses a separation-of-powers question: must the president be able to remove officers who exercise executive authority without cause, or can Congress insulate certain multimember bodies to protect independence and prevent politicization? The justices repeatedly probed the practical implications of either outcome, testing the boundaries of the parties’ positions and asking how a new rule would be administered. Depending on how narrowly or broadly the Court frames its holding, the ruling could reshape the structure and accountability of numerous federal agencies.