The Supreme Court signaled Monday that it may expand presidential authority to remove federal officials, allowing President Trump to move forward with dismissing Federal Trade Commission member Rebecca Slaughter.
The justices put on hold a lower-court order requiring Trump to reinstate Slaughter, which relied on a 1935 precedent limiting presidential removal powers. By letting the firing stand for now and fast-tracking the case, the court set up a major ruling on the scope of executive authority.
In directing lawyers to brief whether the 1935 decision should be overturned and whether judges can block a presidential firing, the court suggested its willingness to revisit long-standing limits on the presidency. To grant Trump relief, the majority concluded he is likely to prevail on the merits.
All three Democratic appointees dissented, warning the case could undermine independent regulatory agencies and criticizing the majority for reshaping executive power through interim rulings.
“Our emergency docket should never be used, as it has been this year, to permit what our own precedent bars,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote. “Still more, it should not be used, as it also has been, to transfer government authority from Congress to the president, and thus to reshape the nation’s separation of powers.”
At the center of the case is Humphrey’s Executor, a 1935 ruling that prevented President Franklin D. Roosevelt from removing an FTC commissioner. The court held that because the agency was designed to be independent and bipartisan, Congress could restrict removals to cases of good cause. That precedent has since been used to limit presidential firing authority in other settings.
Trump’s team has argued on more than one occasion that the president is head of the Executive Branch, and any rule or law passed by Congress that limits the president’s Article II authorities such as being able to manage Executive Branch staff is unconstitutional.
