Overview

• The court stayed a district judge’s order protecting Rebecca Slaughter from dismissal and said it will hear the case in December, following an earlier administrative pause by Chief Justice John Roberts.
• The dispute puts the 1935 Humphrey’s Executor precedent in the spotlight, as the Justice Department argues the modern FTC allows at-will removal while Slaughter’s lawyers say the agency has not outgrown the ruling.
• Earlier this year the justices also allowed Trump’s removals at the NLRB, MSPB and CPSC to stand during litigation, with the three liberal justices dissenting in those emergency orders.
• Since the March removals, the FTC has for most of that period operated with three Republicans and no Democratic members.
• A separate filing over Trump’s firing of Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook raises due-process questions tied to an FHFA criminal referral, which Cook disputes as she seeks a hearing.