Supreme Court Rules President May Fire FTC Commissioner

Neither Congress nor the courts may saddle the president with those with whom he cannot work, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled June 29. Subordinates such as a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) commissioner who exercise the president’s power are subject to removal by him, the court determined. 

In a separate decision, the court held that the Federal Reserve is a special case and affords its members procedural protections before their removal.

In the FTC case, the Supreme Court ruled that only if the president has removal power can those who exercise the president’s authority “remain accountable to the president, and the president to the people.” In addition, the court stated, “The president cannot faithfully execute the laws if he cannot supervise those who execute them.”

The decision by the Supreme Court in the FTC case will likely influence the eventual outcomes of cases involving the president’s removal of Gwynne Wilcox from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and Jocelyn Samuels from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), said James Plunkett, an attorney with Ogletree Deakins in Washington, D.C. 

“However, it will likely take some time before the practical impact of today’s decision is felt by employers,” he added. “Assuming that Wilcox and Samuels eventually lose on their underlying legal challenges to their removal, the impacts will most likely be felt during changes in administrations: future presidents will no longer have to wait until the expiration of board members’ and commissioners’ terms to expire before nominating their preferred candidates. For employers, this potential new reality could result in quicker and more dramatic policy swings.”

SHRM Chief Administrative Officer Emily M. Dickens issued the following statement regarding the Supreme Court’s decisions: “Today’s decisions will have significant implications for the enforcement of workplace policy across the federal government.”

She explained that while federal employment statutes remain unchanged, the FTC ruling could increase the likelihood of more frequent shifts in agency leadership and enforcement priorities at agencies like the EEOC, the NLRB, and others. This may create greater uncertainty for employers and employees alike, she noted. 

“Employers, workers, and HR professionals rely on clarity, consistency, and predictability in the regulatory environment,” Dickens stated. “Organizations make long-term workforce, compliance, and investment decisions based on a stable understanding of how workplace laws are enforced. When the structure of federal agency oversight shifts, our members feel it directly in how workplace laws are interpreted, how regulatory guidance is issued, and how compliance expectations evolve.”

But she added that the Federal Reserve decision is a reminder that “Congress retains meaningful authority to structure certain institutions with independence protections and that courts will scrutinize whether removal actions comply with both statutory and constitutional requirements, including basic due process.”

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Supreme Court Decision in the FTC Case

In a 6-3 decision written by U.S. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., the Supreme Court noted in the FTC case that statutorily the FTC’s five commissioners may be removed by the president only for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office. The court ruled that “such protection from removal is contrary to the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution.” 

In March 2025, President Donald Trump fired two remaining Democratic FTC commissioners, Rebecca Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya. The president did not say they were inefficient, neglected their duties, or committed malfeasance in office. He instead told them that their “continued service on the FTC [was] inconsistent with [his] administration’s priorities” and that they were removed from office according to his authority under Article II of the Constitution.

Slaughter challenged her removal, claiming it was beyond the president’s powers, and violated the Administrative Procedure Act and the Constitution. Relying on Supreme Court precedent in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, a district court agreed that removal was beyond the president’s powers, saying the FTC had solely “quasi-legislative” and “quasi-judicial” functions, and issued a permanent injunction. An appeals court denied the government’s motion for a stay pending appeal, also relying on Humphrey’s.

The Supreme Court reversed, saying, the Constitution was to establish a hierarchy — a chief magistrate—with whom the buck stops, and below him various assistants or deputies who derive their offices from his appointment and remain subject to his superintendence. The Supreme Court added that “to remain accountable to the president, those officers must be removable by the president.”

Officers of the president were to serve as envoys of the president, not his equals, the court added. 

As for Humphrey’s, the Supreme Court noted that if anything more is left of that decision, the court overrules it. “Humphrey’s has been difficult to make sense of from the start,” the court said. “Only by blind feats of definition could the court transform powers that are quintessentially executive — investigative and prosecutorial alike — into nonexecutive ‘quasi-legislative’ and ‘quasi-judicial’ functions,” the court said.

Independent agencies are not independent in the sense that they are free of the president and responsive only to the people of the U.S., the Supreme Court wrote.

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Dissent in the FTC Case

Writing a dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said, “There is little to suggest that executive power, as understood at the time of the founding, was as capacious as the court asserts today.”

She added, “nothing in the text of the Constitution, as understood at the time of the founding by those who ratified it, suggests the illimitable removal power the court today endorses.”

Without removal protections, many features of agencies’ structures risk losing their force, she wrote. “Bipartisan-appointment requirements can easily be evaded simply by firing all commissioners of the opposite party. Just look at the FTC today,” she wrote.

Dozens of independent commissions now are likely to become purely executive agencies, she added. 

But she noted that the court recognized that agencies such as the Federal Reserve, have permissible, perhaps even indispensable, removal protections.

Federal Reserve Decision

In the Federal Reserve System decision, the court noted that for the first time in the Federal Reserve’s history, the president attempted to fire one of its governors, Lisa Cook.  A federal court issued an injunction to prevent him from doing so. In an opinion also written by Roberts, the Supreme Court let that order stay in effect, pending the conclusion of litigation over the attempted removal.

The Federal Reserve’s governors do not serve at the president’s pleasure. They instead serve staggered 14-year terms, and may be removed only for cause.

President Trump purported to fire Cook for cause. In a letter to Cook, he stated that he had “reason to believe” that she “may have made false statements on one or more mortgage agreements.”

Cook sued, alleging the firing was not for cause and that the president had failed to comply with the statute’s and the Constitution’s requirement that she receive notice and some opportunity to respond to the charges against her before being fired.

A district court agreed, finding both of her claims likely to succeed and issuing a preliminary injunction. An appeals court declined to lift the injunction.

The Supreme Court also declined to lift the injunction, ruling the government was not likely to prevail on its arguments. “To accept any one of [its] arguments would in effect transform the Federal Reserve’s for-cause protection into at-will employment — an interpretive leap out of step with the statute Congress enacted and our nation’s tradition of central banking protected from political interference,” the Supreme Court wrote.