The Supreme Court on Monday allowed President Donald Trump to fire a member of the Federal Trade Commission, temporarily blocking a lower court’s ruling that had sought to protect her from removal.
In an order from Chief Justice John Roberts, the court put a hold on a decision that had reinstated Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter while her case proceeds. While not a final ruling, the order indicates the court may grant the Trump administration’s emergency request for broader authority to fire members of independent agencies without cause.
In March, President Trump dismissed both Democratic commissioners on the five-member FTC, Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya. Both contested the move, although Bedoya later withdrew from the lawsuit.
The firings mount a direct challenge to Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, a 1935 Supreme Court precedent that upheld congressional limits on a president’s power to remove FTC commissioners. The 1914 law that created the agency states that members can only be removed for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.”
A federal judge and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit had previously ruled in Slaughter’s favor, citing the 1935 decision. However, the Supreme Court’s current majority has expressed skepticism about the structure of independent agencies and has undermined similar protections in recent cases.
Lawyers for the Trump administration argue that the restrictions on removal unlawfully limit the president’s executive power as defined by Article 2 of the Constitution.
The FTC is overseen by five commissioners who serve seven-year terms, with no more than three belonging to the same political party. Slaughter and Bedoya were the commission’s two Democratic members.
