The US supreme court ruled that Donald Trump can fire leaders of independent agencies or commissions, ending 90 years of court precedent that curbs executive power.
The vote in the case of Trump v Slaughter is 6-3, with dissents from Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Ketanji Brown Jackson and Elena Kagan.
The case was focused on the White House’s March 2025 firing of Federal Trade Commission member Rebecca Slaughter. Trump fired Slaughter over email, telling her that keeping her as a commissioner would be “inconsistent with [the] administration’s priorities”.
Upon her termination, Slaughter sued the Trump administration, saying she was fired without cause, and a lower court ruled for her reinstatement.
In challenging Slaughter’s suit, the White House argued the court should overturn Humphrey’s Executor v United States, a landmark ruling from 1935 where the supreme court ruled that the president unlawfully fired a member of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), limiting the president’s power over independent agencies.
The FTC is tasked with enforcing consumer protection and anti-trust laws. The agency is structured with five bipartisan commissioners, and no more than three can come from the same party. Congress placed restrictions on the hiring and firing of commissioners in an effort to insulate the agency from partisan politics. The Trump administration asked the court of appeals to put the ruling on hold while it appealed, but was denied.
“The government is not likely to succeed on appeal because any ruling in its favor from this court would have to defy binding, on-point, and repeatedly preserved supreme court precedent,” two appeals judges wrote in the majority opinion.
The Trump administration then went to the supreme court, requesting a stay of the order while the government appeals. The supreme court voted to grant the stay of the order in September 2025, with three justices dissenting.
Overruling Humphrey’s executor, former government officials have warned, would undermine the independence of federal agencies.
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“Eliminating these removal protections would jeopardize all facets of agency independence, as agency leaders would be reluctant to engage in regulatory or enforcement actions – or even day-to-day agency decision-making – without coordinating with the White House for fear of termination,” wrote Lauren McFerran, former National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) chair, and Celine McNicholas, a former official at the NLRB, in an Economic Policy Institute report from October 2025.
