The Supreme Court is expected to rule by June's end on whether presidents may fire FTC and Fed commissioners at will, potentially overturning a 90-year precedent.
The Supreme Court is poised to decide, before the close of its June 2026 term, whether the president holds unrestricted authority to remove commissioners of the Federal Trade Commission and members of the Federal Reserve Board [1]. The two consolidated cases, Trump v. Slaughter and Trump v. Cook, place FTC Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter and Fed Governor Lisa Cook at the center of a constitutional confrontation that turns on who controls independent federal agencies [3]. A ruling for the administration in Slaughter is expected to overturn or substantially curtail Humphrey's Executor v. United States, the 1935 precedent that for nine decades has shielded multi-member commissions from at-will presidential removal [1].
The cases reached the Court after the administration dismissed both officials and they challenged the terminations as unlawful under for-cause removal protections embedded in their agencies' organic statutes [3]. The Court's posture toward removal power has not been passive. In May 2026, the Court used the shadow docket to signal that comparable removal protections at the National Labor Relations Board and the Merit Systems Protection Board are likely unconstitutional [1]. The D.C. Circuit, reading that signal, subsequently struck down those protections, invalidating the reinstatement orders that had temporarily kept NLRB member Gwynne Wilcox and MSPB Chair Cathy Harris in their positions [2].
The substantive stakes extend well beyond any individual commissioner's tenure. If the Court holds that for-cause removal restrictions are constitutionally impermissible, the structural independence of the EEOC, the SEC, the FERC, the NLRB, and the FTC could be eliminated in a single decision [1]. Enforcement priorities at those agencies would become subject to direct presidential direction, displacing the at-arm's-length regulatory model that has governed much of federal economic regulation since the New Deal [3]. Solicitor General D. John Sauer has pressed the Court to adopt a broad rule grounding plenary removal authority in Article II [1]. Justice Elena Kagan, during oral argument, pressed back on the sweep of that position, warning that dismantling Humphrey's Executor would leave no limiting principle [1].
Decisions in both cases are expected by the end of June 2026 [3]. Regulated entities, agency staff, and congressional oversight committees are watching the docket closely. Whatever the Court holds, the opinions will define the operative constitutional architecture of the administrative state for years to come [1].