The Supreme Court just agreed to crack open a 90-year-old precedent that stands between the president and absolute control over federal agencies. The case involves a fired commissioner, an angry president, and a constitutional theory that could reshape American government as we know it.
At stake is far more than one woman’s job.
When a Pink Slip Becomes a Constitutional Crisis
Rebecca Slaughter thought her seven-year term as FTC commissioner was protected by law. President Trump thought otherwise. When he fired her “at will” upon taking office in January 2025, he didn’t cite malfeasance or negligence – the legal standards required under the FTC Act. He simply decided she should go.
The Supreme Court, in a 6-3 emergency decision, said the firing could stand while they use her case to revisit Humphrey’s Executor v. United States. That 1935 ruling established that President Franklin Roosevelt couldn’t fire an FTC commissioner without cause.
Now the same court that limited presidential power in Roosevelt’s era may hand Trump – and every future president – unprecedented authority over agencies designed to operate independently.
The Constitutional Theory Driving Trump’s Bulldozer
Behind Trump’s aggressive firing spree lies a doctrine called “unitary executive theory.” The premise is deceptively simple: Article II of the Constitution makes the president the head of the executive branch, and that means total control.
“The Constitution says the president is the head of the executive branch,” explained Hans von Spakovsky of the Heritage Foundation. “That means, just like the CEO of a big corporation, they get to supervise and run the entire corporation.”
But here’s what the Founders actually created – a system of intentional friction. Congress established independent agencies like the FTC, SEC, and various labor boards with commissioners serving fixed terms, removable only for cause. The goal was to insulate certain regulatory functions from political whims.
Trump has spent his second term testing whether those protections are constitutional or merely statutory suggestions.
The 1935 Decision That’s Now on Life Support
Humphrey’s Executor has governed presidential firing power for nine decades, but legal scholars say the Supreme Court has been chipping away at its foundation for years. The 2010 decision narrowing Sarbanes-Oxley protections and the 2020 ruling allowing at-will firing of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau director were warning shots.
In that CFPB case, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that the president’s power “to remove – and thus supervise – those who wield executive power on his behalf follows from the text of Article II.”
Joshua Blackman, a professor at South Texas College of Law, believes the writing is on the wall. “I think this ruling will necessarily reach beyond the FTC,” he said.
“The only question is whether they maintain that the Federal Reserve is different.”
That question isn’t theoretical. Trump also fired Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, and that case is winding through the courts as well.
Here’s What Constitutional Lawyers Fear Most
The Supreme Court has hinted the Federal Reserve might deserve special treatment as a “quasi-private” structure rooted in central banking traditions. But if Humphrey’s falls completely, dozens of independent agencies could lose their insulation from presidential control overnight.
The FTC of 1935 that Roosevelt couldn’t control was a modest regulatory body. Today’s FTC can open investigations, issue subpoenas, bring lawsuits, and impose massive financial penalties. It exercises executive, quasi-legislative, and quasi-judicial functions.
Constitutional law expert John Shu argues this expansion justifies narrowing Humphrey’s protections. “The Federal Trade Commission of 1935 is a lot different than the Federal Trade Commission today,” he said.
But Boston University law professor Jed Shugerman sees something darker at work. He said Trump has “done more to establish a unitary executive than all the judges and legal scholars in the world could ever do” – and simultaneously “done more to discredit and expose the unitary executive theory as lawless authoritarianism.”
The Domino Effect Nobody’s Talking About
If the Supreme Court rules in Trump’s favor, it won’t just affect the FTC. The Securities and Exchange Commission protects investors. The National Labor Relations Board referees union disputes. The Federal Communications Commission regulates broadcasters.
All of these agencies were structured with commissioner independence to prevent them from becoming presidential enforcement arms. All of them could become casualties of this case.
Trump didn’t accidentally stumble into this constitutional showdown. When he took office in January 2025, he “abruptly sidestepped numerous statutes” to fire protected appointees across multiple independent agencies. These weren’t isolated personnel decisions – they were a coordinated stress test of constitutional boundaries.
The Supreme Court is now being asked to decide whether those boundaries exist at all.
What Happens When the Referee Works for One Team
The question before the Court isn’t complicated legal theory – it’s whether Americans want regulatory agencies that can investigate and penalize wrongdoing without checking the president’s approval rating first. Independent agencies were designed to operate on law and evidence, not political loyalty.
A president who can fire commissioners at will can also threaten to fire them. That threat alone changes everything about how aggressive enforcement becomes, which industries get scrutinized, and which violations get ignored.
The administrative state – that sprawling network of federal agencies that conservatives love to hate – may be about to experience its most significant structural change since the New Deal. Not through legislation or public debate, but through one case about one firing.
Rebecca Slaughter’s termination was Trump’s opening move. The Supreme Court’s decision will determine whether it was checkmate for agency independence – or an illegal power grab that crossed constitutional lines the Court still recognizes.
Either way, the answer will define presidential power for generations.