Supreme Court will weigh expanding Trump's power to shape agencies by overturning 90-year-old ruling
Last edited Mon Sep 22, 2025, 04:10 PM - Edit history (1)
Source: AP
Updated 3:40 PM EDT, September 22, 2025
WASHINGTON (AP) The Supreme Court said Monday it will consider expanding President Donald Trumps power to shape independent agencies by overturning a nearly century-old decision limiting when presidents can fire board members.
In a 6-3 decision, the high court also allowed the Republican president to carry out the firing of Rebecca Slaughter, a Democratic member of the Federal Trade Commission, while the case plays out.
Its the latest high-profile firing the court has allowed in recent months, signaling the conservative majority is poised to overturn or narrow a 1935 Supreme Court decision that found commissioners can only be removed for misconduct or neglect of duty.
Justice Elena Kagan, joined by Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented from the decision allowing Slaughters firing. It comes after similar decisions affecting three other independent agencies. Congress, as everyone agrees, prohibited each of those presidential removals, Kagan wrote. Yet the majority, stay order by stay order, has handed full control of all those agencies to the President. The majority did not detail their reasoning on allowing Slaughters firing, as is typical on the courts emergency docket.
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/trump-fire-ftc-commissioner-supreme-court-2149d7c3802b3ddea6e157d3a0afd292
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Article updated.
Original article -
WASHINGTON (AP) The Supreme Court said Monday it will consider expanding President Donald Trumps power to shape independent agencies by overturning a nearly century-old decision limiting when presidents can fire board members.
The justices have allowed the Republican president to carry out some high-profile firings while lawsuits play out, signaling the conservative majority is poised to overturn or narrow a 1935 Supreme Court decision that found commissioners can only be removed for misconduct or neglect of duty.
The high court agreed to take up the case of Rebecca Slaughter, a Democratic member of the Federal Trade Commission who was reinstated by lower courts under a 90-year-old ruling known as Humphreys Executor. In that case, the court sided with another FTC commissioner who was fired by Franklin D. Roosevelt as the president worked to implement the New Deal. The justices unanimously found commissioners can be removed only for misconduct or neglect of duty.
The justices decision then ushered in an era of powerful independent federal agencies charged with regulating labor relations, employment discrimination and public airwaves. But it has long rankled conservative legal theorists who argue such agencies should answer to the president.

bucolic_frolic
(52,540 posts)Hopefully, someday.
SSJVegeta
(1,597 posts)In the short term?
FUCK!
FBaggins
(28,447 posts)Good luck with that.
subterranean
(3,691 posts)is that this would make it easier for the next Democratic president to fire all the unqualified MAGA loyalists trump installs. But the problem then would be finding enough qualified people to fill those positions.
How do you think it could potentially be good news in the long term?
MLWR
(571 posts)SCOTUS justices need to be impeached by the House and then tried and convicted in the Senate by a 2/3 majority vote. Good luck finding 67 votes in any Senate. For SIX fascist justices. Second, I do not worry that Democrats couldn't find six eminently qualified, experienced people to fill those seats: we have a plethora of talent. That is not even remotely a problem.
subterranean
(3,691 posts)I was talking about the people working for government agencies, not the SCOTUS justices.
Bayard
(27,175 posts)I hope these six justices know their mark on history will be abysmal.
MayReasonRule
(3,855 posts)bluestarone
(20,383 posts)fucking days to her. More prayers for serious health issues for all six of these TRAITORS!!
elleng
(140,898 posts)'On May 27, 1935, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous 90 decision in favor of Rathbun and Humphrey's estate.
In an opinion written by Justice George Sutherland, the Court held that it was not unconstitutional for Section 1 of the FTC Act to limit the power of the President to remove FTC commissioners only to situations involving "inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office." The opinion gave four main reasons for the Court's conclusion. First, the Court said that when Congress had created the FTC in 1914, it had intended the Commission to be a federal government agency that was independent and non-partisan.[10] The opinion described the FTC as an agency that was supposed to be free from control by the President and the executive branch, except for the initial appointments of its commissioners by the President.[10]
The commission is to be nonpartisan, and it must, from the very nature of its duties, act with entire impartiality. It is charged with the enforcement of no policy except the policy of the law. ...
...
Thus, the language of the [FTC] act, the legislative reports, and the general purposes of the legislation as reflected by the debates all combine to demonstrate the Congressional intent to create a body of experts who shall gain experience by length of service a body which shall be independent of executive authority except in its selection, and free to exercise its judgment without the leave or hindrance of any other official or any department of the government.
Humphrey's Executor, 295 U.S. at 624, 62526.[11]
Second, the Court said that Congress had intended FTC commissioners to be experts in business and industry who would "exercise the trained judgment of a body of experts" while being insulated from politics.[12] It compared the FTC to the Interstate Commerce Commission, which had been created in 1887 as an independent overseer of practices in the railroad industry.[13]
The Court's third and fourth reasons were that the function and duties of the FTC were "neither political nor executive, but predominantly quasi-judicial and quasi-legislative."[14] The Court said the FTC did not perform the traditional executive-branch function of enforcing the law, but instead was more like a legislative or judicial body.[13] It reasoned that because the FTC did not enforce the law, the President did not need unfettered removal power over FTC commissioners in order to fulfill his duty under Article II of the U.S. Constitution to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed."[13]
The Court concluded by ruling that the removal restrictions in Section 1 of the FTC Act were constitutional, meaning that Myers v. United States is not controlling[15]:
We think it plain under the Constitution that illimitable power of removal is not possessed by the President in respect of officers of the character of those just named. The authority of Congress, in creating quasi-legislative or quasi-judicial agencies, to require them to act in discharge of their duties independently of executive control cannot well be doubted, and that authority includes, as an appropriate incident, power to fix the period during which they shall continue in office, and to forbid their removal except for cause in the meantime. For it is quite evident that one who holds his office only during the pleasure of another cannot be depended upon to maintain an attitude of independence against the latter's will.
Humphrey's Executor, 295 U.S. at 629.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humphrey%27s_Executor_v._United_States
Scalded Nun
(1,518 posts)They will continue hating and shitting on this country until the day when they get their turn under the bus.
And be assured, their turn will come.
bluestarone
(20,383 posts)EVERY CASE!!
mdbl
(7,459 posts)The question was rhetorical.
GiqueCee
(2,855 posts)... 25 years ago. Remember Cheney and Rumsfeld getting all giddy about the "UNITARY EXECUTIVE"? That's exactly what we're looking at now. New euphemisms, same filthy ulterior motive: Total dominion over the lives of others.