Supreme Court to consider gutting agency autonomy

Democratic FTC Commissioners Rebecca Slaughter and Alvero Bedova, both fired by President Donald Trump

The FTC’s two Democratic commissioners, Rebecca Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya, were both fired by Trump

(Image credit: Shuran Huang for The Washington Post via Getty Images)

published 23 September 2025

What happened

The Supreme Court yesterday allowed President Donald Trump’s removal of the last Democrat on the Federal Trade Commission and agreed to consider overturning a 90-year-old ruling limiting when a president can dismiss the members of nominally independent boards. The court’s three liberals dissented from the unsigned, unexplained emergency docket decision.

Who said what

After Trump fired the five-member FTC’s two Democratic commissioners, Rebecca Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya, in March, Slaughter sued while Bedoya eventually resigned. Slaughter pointed to the unanimous 1935 ruling Humphrey’s Executor, which holds that presidents can only fire commissioners for misconduct or neglect of duty. But the current court’s conservative majority has “all but overturned that precedent in recent rulings,” allowing Trump to dismiss Democratic members of two independent agencies without cause, The Washington Post said.

“Congress, as everyone agrees, prohibited each of those presidential removals,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote in yesterday’s dissent. “Yet the majority, stay order by stay order, has handed full control of all those agencies to the president.” The court’s conservatives “may be raring” to overturn Humphrey’s Executor, but it still stands, she added, and the emergency docket “should never be used” to overturn precedent or, “as it also has been, to transfer government authority from Congress to the president, and thus to reshape the nation’s separation of powers.”

What next?

The Supreme Court will hear Slaughter’s case in December, signaling that a “majority of the court is ready to revisit” the “landmark” check on presidential power, said The New York Times. Slaughter, reinstated by a lower court then suspended earlier this month by Chief Justice John Roberts, will remain fired until the court issues its decision.

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.