The New York Times reports:

In a slashing 43-page dissent from the Supreme Court’s decision on Monday allowing the president to fire the leaders of independent agencies for any reason or no reason, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that the majority had destroyed the separation of powers and upended settled constitutional law. The ruling, she wrote, “promises to unleash only chaos.”

In her dissent, Justice Sotomayor wrote that “today, this court undoes centuries of political practice and concludes that all three branches of government have been acting in open defiance of the Constitution all this time. Its conclusion is wrong.”

As she also did on Thursday, Justice Sotomayor summarized her dissent from the bench, a rare move reserved for profound disagreements.

As she spoke, criticizing the court for extending its “maximalist view of presidential power,” Justice Sotomayor often looked at Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who delivered the majority opinion. He did not meet her gaze.

“The one thing that does appear to be clear going forward is that chaos will follow,” Justice Sotomayor said.

The ruling dealt with laws adopted by Congress that said some regulators could be fired by the president only for cause. Chief Justice Roberts, writing for the majority, said such laws infringed on the president’s power to run the executive branch.

Justice Sotomayor, joined by the other two Democratic appointees, Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, said Congress had the power to shield administrative agencies like the Federal Trade Commission from political interference.

“For more than a century,” Justice Sotomayor wrote, “the nation has firmly rejected the majority’s view and has recognized that Congress, not this court, has primary say over whether multi-member commissions like the F.T.C. should have some insulation from direct presidential control.”

Justice Sotomayor also accused the majority of bad faith in overruling an important precedent from 1935, Humphrey’s Executor, in which the court had held that a law limiting the president’s power to fire regulators was constitutional.

“Seldom, if ever, has this court worked such a profound bait and switch on a coequal branch,” she wrote. “For more than 90 years, Congress believed, with this court’s express approval, that it was allowed to create a workable government, including by granting certain agencies tasked with certain responsibilities some independence from presidential control.” [Continue reading…]

The Washington Post reports:

Legal experts had long expected the Supreme Court to rule against the precedent protecting independent agency heads, known as Humphrey’s Executor, because the justices had been chipping away at it for years. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. called it a “dried husk” during arguments in December.

The current case deals with Trump’s ouster of a Democratic member of the Federal Trade Commission. Trump fired Rebecca Slaughter and the other Democrat on the five-member FTC, Alvaro Bedoya, without cause in March 2025. The dismissals were part of a broader campaign by the president to remove perceived liberal leaders from independent agencies and replace them with loyalists.

Slaughter challenged her dismissal in federal court, saying Trump had exceeded his authority under the law creating the FTC. The law says the president can fire members only for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” The agency works on antitrust and consumer protection issues.

A federal judge cited the Humphrey’s Executor precedent in reinstating Slaughter to her job. That decision was upheld by an appeals court before the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to intervene. Roberts paused Slaughter’s reinstatement in September so the high court could weigh the administration’s appeal.

During arguments in December, Solicitor General D. John Sauer said regulatory agencies like the FTC had become “a headless fourth branch insulated from political accountability and democratic control” and that curbing the president’s power to remove agency heads infringed on his powers.

Trump has often disparaged the federal bureaucracy as a “deep state” undermining his agenda. He has moved to fire thousands of federal workers, shutter agencies and remove civil service protections to bring the government more firmly under his control.

Many in the administration also support the unitary executive theory, which holds that the Constitution vests direct control of the executive branch solely in the president so that he should be free to fire any of its officials at will. Since the Reagan administration, conservatives have pushed to give the president greater control over hiring and firing decisions in the government.

Trump initially nominated Slaughter to the FTC in 2018. She was unanimously approved by the Senate before President Joe Biden renominated her in 2023. Slaughter has become an outspoken critic of Trump’s efforts to cut the federal workforce.

Amit Agarwal, Slaughter’s attorney, told the justices in December that the nation had a long tradition of creating independent agencies and the FTC’s removal protections were consistent with the separation of powers.

“Multimember agencies have been part of our story since 1790,” Agarwal told the justices.

Slaughter’s case echoed the one that created the Humphrey’s Executor precedent in 1935. President Franklin D. Roosevelt attempted to dismiss an FTC commissioner, William Humphrey, over political differences related to the New Deal and other issues.
The Supreme Court found Humphrey’s firing was illegal and upheld the law creating the FTC, concluding it was lawful for Congress to carve out job protections for independent agency heads. [Continue reading…]