Supreme Court overturns Humphrey's Executor, expanding presidential power over independent agencies
The Supreme Court overturned a 91-year-old precedent and ruled 6-3 that President Trump’s 2025 removal of Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter without cause was lawful, NPR reported . Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority — “If anything more is left of Humphrey’s, we overrule it” — while the three liberal justices dissented and Justice Sonia Sotomayor read part of her dissent from the bench, a step justices reserve for sharp disagreement.
The 1935 decision in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States had allowed Congress to insulate certain agency heads from at-will removal, the legal foundation for the independence of bodies that operate at arm’s length from the White House. By discarding that protection, the Court hands the president direct leverage over roughly two dozen multimember agencies that regulate labor disputes, workplace discrimination, product safety, credit unions and transportation accidents, among others.
The practical effect is that a president can now replace commissioners who diverge from administration policy rather than wait out fixed terms, making these agencies far more responsive to the elected executive — and far less able to act as a check on it. The ruling stops short of resolving how the Federal Reserve is treated; the Court addressed that question separately the same day in declining, for now, to permit the removal of governor Lisa Cook.