The Supreme Court is expected to rule by end of June in Trump v. Slaughter, a case that could overturn Humphrey's Executor and eliminate independence protections for federal agency commissioners.
The Supreme Court is expected to issue its ruling in *Trump v. Slaughter* before the end of June 2026, a decision that could dismantle the legal foundation protecting commissioners of the Federal Trade Commission and roughly two dozen other independent federal agencies from at-will presidential removal [1]. The case presents the Court with its clearest opportunity in decades to overrule *Humphrey's Executor v. United States* (1935), the precedent that has anchored the structural independence of the modern administrative state for 90 years [1].
The dispute arises from President Trump's removal of FTC Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter, who challenged the firing as unlawful under the FTC Act's "for cause" protection and under *Humphrey's Executor* [1]. The government, represented by Solicitor General D. John Sauer, argues that the Constitution's vesting of executive power in the President requires unrestricted removal authority over all principal officers, a theory rooted in the unitary executive doctrine [2]. Slaughter and her co-respondents counter that Congress's power to insulate multimember commissions from removal is settled law, embedded in nine decades of institutional reliance [1]. The case is before the Supreme Court of the United States, sitting in Washington, D.C., following oral argument held in December 2025 [1].
The December argument left little ambiguity about where the Court's conservative majority stands. Chief Justice John Roberts described *Humphrey's Executor* as a "dried husk," and Justice Brett Kavanaugh pressed hard on the textual and historical case for unitary executive control [1]. Justice Sonia Sotomayor led the dissenting voices, warning that eliminating for-cause protections would subject the SEC, NLRB, FERC, EEOC, and the FTC itself to direct presidential pressure on enforcement and rulemaking decisions [2]. A government victory would represent the most consequential restructuring of the administrative state since the New Deal era [1].
The practical stakes extend well beyond the FTC. A ruling for the government would expose commissioners and board members at multimember agencies across the federal government to removal at presidential discretion, potentially rendering their pending rulemakings and enforcement actions legally vulnerable to challenge [2]. Regulated industries, from financial services to labor markets to energy, face immediate uncertainty about the continuity and legal durability of agency actions already on the books [2]. Opinions in argued cases are expected by the end of the Court's term in late June 2026 [1].