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  "description": "Case could upend 90 years of agency independence.",
  "path": "/supreme-court-to-test-trumps-power-over-the-fourth-branch/",
  "publishedAt": "2025-10-20T18:25:45.000Z",
  "site": "https://broadbandbreakfast.com",
  "tags": [
    "_1914 Federal Trade Commission Act_",
    "_court filings_",
    "__Humphrey’s Executor v. United States__",
    "Federal Trade Commission Act",
    "_amicus brief_",
    "_urged the justices_"
  ],
  "textContent": "WASHINGTON, Oct. 20, 2025 —The Supreme Court moved to revisit a bedrock of presidential power as a 1935 precedent faced its sharpest test in nearly a century.\n\nThe Court scheduled Dec. 8, 2025 arguments in _Trump v. Slaughter_ , a case that could redefine how much control presidents hold over independent regulators. The outcome could determine whether presidents can fire Federal Trade Commission commissioners at will or only under the limits Congress set in the _1914 Federal Trade Commission Act_.\n\nPresident **Donald Trump** removed Democratic Commissioner **Rebecca Kelly** Slaughter in March. In _court filings_, his administration argued that FTC commissioners exercised executive power and were therefore removable at the president’s discretion.\n\nSlaughter sued, and cited __Humphrey’s Executor v. United States__ (1935), which upheld a statutory limit allowing removal of FTC commissioners only “for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office” - not policy disagreements.\n\nLower courts ruled for Slaughter, finding Trump’s firing exceeded the law’s limits. The Supreme Court had instead let the removal stand, which positioned the case as a direct test of the precedent that has shaped agency independence since the New Deal.\n\nThat independence, rooted in the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914and affirmed in _Humphrey’s Executor v. United States_ (1935), shielded multi-member commissions from direct presidential control through bipartisan membership and for-cause removal limits. Supporters said the structure promotes an apolitical and even-handed enforcement of antitrust, consumer-protection, and market-fairness rules.\n\nIn a new _amicus brief_, or “friend of the court” filing that allowed third parties to present arguments, Sen. **Eric Schmitt,** R-Mo., _urged the justices_ to strike _Humphrey’s Executor_ entirely. Schmitt, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, said the Court should “overrule whatever is left of _Humphrey’s Executor —_ which reaffirmed the President’s authority to remove Executive Branch officials who wield power in his name and restoring a constitutional head to the infamous ‘headless Fourth branch.’”\n\nSchmitt’s filing advanced a sweeping view of presidential control, declaring, “Under our Constitution, the executive power, all of it, is vested in a President,” the brief said. His argument reflected the unitary executive theory, a conservative legal doctrine that gained prominence in the 1980s and held that all officials performing executive functions must ultimately answer to the president.\n\nThe brief drew on a series of Supreme Court decisions that expanded presidential removal power which argued that _Humphrey’s Executor_ is “anti-constitutional” and “unworkable.”\n\nA ruling for Trump could expand presidential firing power across independent boards; a ruling for Slaughter would reaffirm limits first drawn nine decades ago.",
  "title": "Supreme Court to Test Trump’s Power Over the ‘Fourth Branch’",
  "updatedAt": "2026-03-11T05:44:21.628Z"
}