On Monday, the Supreme Court cleared the way for Trump to fire FTC Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter and agreed to decide on the president’s ability to fire the heads of independent agencies. The case could dramatically upend Supreme Court precedent and give the executive branch much greater authority over federal agencies.
In a brief, unsigned order, (6-3) the Court agreed to take up the case of Rebecca Slaughter, a member of the Federal Trade Commission whom President Donald Trump attempted to fire earlier this year. A federal judge in Washington, D.C., had ordered the Trump administration to allow Slaughter to return to office while her challenge to her termination continues. The justices put that order by U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan on hold until they issue a ruling in Slaughter’s case, effectively allowing Trump to move forward with firing Slaughter.
Justice Elena Kagan dissented from the decision to pause Ali Khan’s order, in a two-paragraph opinion joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Kagan wrote that her colleagues in the majority had allowed Trump to remove, contrary to federal law, “any member he wishes, for any reason or no reason at all. And he may thereby extinguish the agencies’ bipartisanship and independence.”
JUSTICE KAGAN, with whom JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR and JUSTICE JACKSON join, dissenting from the grant of the application for stay.
On top of granting certiorari before judgment in this case, the Court today issues a stay enabling the President to immediately discharge, without any cause, a member of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). That stay, granted on our emergency docket, is just the latest in a series. Earlier this year, the same majority, by the same mechanism, permitted the President to fire without cause members of the National Labor Relations Board, the Merits Systems Protection Board, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission. See Trump v. Wilcox, 605 U. S. ___ (2025); Trump v. Boyle, 606 U. S. ___ (2025). Congress, as everyone agrees, prohibited each of those presidential removals. See, e.g., 15 U. S. C. § 41 (barring the President from discharging FTC Commissioners except for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office”). Under the relevant statutes, the entities just listed are “classic independent agenc[ies]”— “‘multi-member, bipartisan commission[s]’ whose members serve staggered terms and cannot be removed except for good reason.” Boyle, 606 U. S., at ___ (KAGAN, J., dissenting from grant of application for stay) (slip op., at 1). Yet the majority, stay order by stay order, has handed full control of all those agencies to the President. He may now remove—so says the majority, though Congress said differently—any member he wishes, for any reason or no reason at all. And he may thereby extinguish the agencies’ bipartisanship and independence. I dissented from the majority’s prior stay...
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