Madeline Halpert
The US Supreme Court’s conservative majority appeared to side on Monday with the Trump administration in a case that could have major implications for the independence of federal agencies long shielded from the White House.
The case, Trump v Slaughter, stems from President Donald Trump’s firing in March of Rebecca Slaughter, alongside another Democratic member of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
The court heard more than two hours of arguments over whether Trump could fire her, since federal law says an commissioner can only be fired for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office”.
The court’s decision is not expected to be announced for several months.
Ms Slaughter sued Trump after she was ousted earlier this year for being “inconsistent with [the] Administration’s priorities”.
Trump has argued that a president should be able to have full control over government agencies, even those set up by Congress to be shielded from presidential interference.
When the FTC was established in 1914 – to protect the public from deceptive business practices and unfair competition – Congress passed a law saying a president could only remove commissioners for cause and that the five-member commission can have no more than three members of the same political party.
Trump appointed Ms Slaughter in 2018 to fill a Democratic position on the FTC, and she was later reappointed by former President Joe Biden.
Similar firing rules exist for other independent agencies like the National Labor Relations Board.
The law was put to the test in 1935, when President Franklin Roosevelt tried to remove a member of the FTC, leading the Supreme Court to uphold the independence of certain federal agencies like the trade commission.
In the 90-year-old ruling known as Humphrey’s Executor, the court found that, while the president has the ability to remove executive officers without cause, such a power does not apply to agencies like the FTC that are “neither political nor executive, but predominantly quasi-judicial and quasi-legislative”.
During oral arguments on Monday, the four conservative justices on the court appeared to disagree with Ms Slaughter’s lawyers’ arguments that this would be an unacceptable expansion of Trump’s powers.
Arguing for the Trump administration, US Solicitor General John Sauer called the Humphrey’s rule an “indefensible outlier” and “decaying husk” of a Supreme Court decision that should be overturned.
“I think broad delegations to unaccountable independent agencies raise enormous constitutional and real-world problems for individual liberty,” said conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch.
The three liberal justices pressed why the court would overturn a 90-year-old precedent.
“You’re asking us to destroy the structure of government,” said Justice Sonia Sotomayor, “and to take away from Congress its ability to protect its idea that the government is better structured with some agencies that are independent.”
Justice Elena Kagan suggested that allowing Trump to remove Ms Slaughter could have wide-reaching impacts, asking: “The question is, where does this lead?”
“Employees are wielding executive power all over the place, and yet we’ve had civil service laws that give them substantial protection from removal for over a century,” she said.
Lawyer Amit Agarwal, representing Ms Slaughter, said independent auditing groups like the FTC have a long history in US politics.
“Multi-member commissions with members enjoying some kind of removal protection have been part of our story since 1790. So if petitioners are right, all three branches of government have been wrong from the start,” he said.
The court has already issued one ruling against Ms Slaughter, which analysts suggested could indicate how it would ultimately rule.
A lower court ruled that Ms Slaughter had been illegally removed from the FTC, leading the Trump administration to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court.
In a 6-3 decision, the conservative-majority court in September issued an emergency order maintaining her firing until the case could be heard.
The Supreme Court is also set to take up at a later date a separate case on whether Trump had the power to remove Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.
