Trump v. Slaughter
The Court holds that the FTC's statutory provision limiting the President's ability to remove Commissioners only for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office violates the separation of powers. Because the FTC exercises quintessentially executive power — rulemaking, enforcement, and civil litigation — its Commissioners must be removable by the President at will, and Humphrey's Executor v. United States is overruled to the extent it holds otherwise.
Case background
The Federal Trade Commission is a regulatory agency with vast rulemaking, enforcement, and adjudicatory powers under more than eighty federal statutes. Its five Commissioners serve seven-year terms and may be removed by the President only “for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” Shortly after beginning his second term in January 2025, President Trump fired the FTC’s two remaining Democratic Commissioners, Rebecca Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya, without citing any statutory cause. He told them their continued service was “inconsistent with his Administration’s priorities” and that they were removed pursuant to his authority under Article II of the Constitution. Slaughter filed suit seeking reinstatement, arguing her removal was ultra vires, violated the Administrative Procedure Act, and violated the Constitution. The District Court for the District of Columbia granted Slaughter’s motion for summary judgment, declaring the removal unlawful and issuing a permanent injunction. A divided Court of Appeals denied the Government’s motion for a stay pending appeal. The Supreme Court stayed the District Court’s order and granted certiorari before judgment.
Questions Presented
(1) Whether the statutory removal protections for members of the Federal Trade Commission violate the separation of powers and, if so, whether Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, 295 U. S. 602 (1935), should be overruled.
(2) Whether a federal court may prevent a person’s removal from public office, either through relief at equity or at law.
Holding
The FTC’s for-cause removal provision is contrary to the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution. The Constitution vests the executive power in the President and requires that he be able to remove officers who exercise executive power on his behalf. The FTC unquestionably exercises executive power — through substantive rulemaking, in-house enforcement adjudications, and civil suits in federal court — and must therefore be subject to the President’s control. Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, to the extent it stands for anything beyond the proposition that an agency exercising no executive power may be structured independently of the President, is overruled. Because the FTC’s activities fall well within the heartland of executive power, the President was entitled to remove Commissioner Slaughter at will. Reversed and remanded.
The Court
Chief Justice Roberts delivered the opinion of the Court, joined by Justices Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett, and joined by Justice Thomas as to all but Part III-B. Justice Gorsuch filed a concurring opinion. Justice Sotomayor filed a dissenting opinion, joined by Justices Kagan and Jackson.
What this episode contains
This episode is an AI-narrated reading of the majority opinion in Trump v. Slaughter, written by Justice Roberts.
AI disclosure: The voice in this episode is AI-generated, using a machine learning model styled to loosely resemble the authoring justice. Tone, inflection, pacing, and emphasis are artifacts of the model and should not be attributed to Justice Roberts. The text being read is the Court’s published majority opinion, lightly adapted to improve readability for the spoken format.