Power Grab/Fire anyone who can stop him
Trump fires the FTC’s two Democratic commissioners, and the Supreme Court upholds the firing and overrules Humphrey’s Executor
The statute allowed removal only for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” The letter gave a different reason.
What happened
On March 18, 2025, Trump fired FTC commissioners Rebecca Kelly Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya, the commission’s two Democratic members. The letter said their “continued service on the FTC [was] inconsistent with [his] Administration’s priorities.” 15 U.S.C. §41 allowed removal only for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.”
Slaughter and Bedoya sued on March 27, 2025. Bedoya resigned in June. Slaughter won reinstatement in district court in July. The Supreme Court stayed that order on September 22, 2025, and heard argument on December 8. The Court had upheld the same removal protection in Humphrey’s Executor in 1935.
On June 29, 2026, in Trump v. Slaughter (No. 25-332), the Supreme Court held 6-3 that the FTC’s removal protection is “contrary to the separation of powers.” Chief Justice Roberts wrote the opinion, which overruled Humphrey’s Executor. Justices Sotomayor, Kagan and Jackson dissented.
Who benefited
Trump gained at-will control over the FTC and, by the logic of the opinion, roughly two dozen other multi-member agencies that Congress designed to be bipartisan and independent. Companies under FTC scrutiny now face a commission with no opposition-party members.
Who wanted something
Trump ordered the firings, and Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued that the 1935 precedent was an outlier. Proponents of the unitary executive theory, including the Federalist Society network and Project 2025’s authors, had sought this outcome for decades. What they got was presidential removal power over independent commissions.
Who lost out
Slaughter and Bedoya lost their seats years before their terms ended. Consumers and workers lost an FTC with internal dissent on mergers, noncompetes and privacy. Congress lost the power to insulate regulators from presidential control, a structural check that bipartisan commissions had provided across the federal government.
Why it matters
The ruling ended nearly a century of settled law on independent agencies. By firing commissioners the statute protected, Trump forced the Court to choose, and the Court sided with the president. Bedoya had resigned before it ruled.
Sources Supreme Court of the United States (primary)SCOTUSblogNPR