Overview
- Oral arguments begin Monday in the Justice Department’s appeal of a D.C. Circuit ruling that ordered FTC Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter reinstated after President Trump fired her in March.
- The Supreme Court previously let Slaughter’s removal take effect while agreeing to hear the case, signaling the high stakes for long‑standing tenure protections at independent agencies.
- The dispute gives the justices an opportunity to narrow or overturn Humphrey’s Executor, the 1935 precedent that permits for‑cause removal protections for commissioners at agencies like the FTC and NLRB.
- The administration argues the FTC exercises executive power and its commissioners must be removable at will for democratic accountability, while Slaughter and supporting scholars cite history and statute to defend Congress’s design of independent, multimember bodies.
- Related fights underscore the broader stakes: the Court has allowed contested removals at the NLRB, MSPB and CPSC to proceed, will hear the Lisa Cook Federal Reserve case in January, and has paused the move to oust Register of Copyrights Shira Perlmutter pending these rulings.