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The Supreme Court’s 2025 action letting President Donald Trump remove Democratic FTC commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter was only an interim step. On June 29, 2026, the Court ruled 6–3 in Trump v. Slaughter that the law protecting FTC commissioners from removal without cause was unconstitutional—and expressly overruled the 1935 precedent that had upheld that protection.
What happened in 2025—and what the Court decided in 2026
In September 2025, the Supreme Court allowed Slaughter’s removal to take effect while her challenge continued. That order did not resolve the case’s merits. The D.C. Circuit’s September 25, 2025 order describes the dispute at that interim stage, when lower courts treated the Supreme Court’s earlier decision in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States as controlling. Read the D.C. Circuit’s September 25, 2025 order. Ars Technica also reported on the interim action at the time. Read Ars Technica’s September 2025 report.
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The final decision came on June 29, 2026. In a 6–3 ruling, the Supreme Court held that the FTC Act’s for-cause removal protection for commissioners was unconstitutional and overruled Humphrey’s Executor. The Court’s opinion is the primary source for the holding and the opinions in the case. Read the Supreme Court opinion in Trump v. Slaughter. The Congressional Research Service also summarizes the ruling and its effect on the precedent. Read the CRS legal analysis.
What the 90-year-old precedent had established
In 1935, Humphrey’s Executor unanimously upheld Congress’s authority to protect FTC commissioners from removal except for specified cause. The FTC Act identified those grounds as “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” Slaughter’s challenge put that protection—and the precedent supporting it—at the center of the case.
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Why the majority and dissent disagreed
The majority: commissioners exercising executive power must be removable by the president
The 2026 majority reasoned that FTC commissioners exercise executive power and cannot be insulated from presidential removal in the way the statute provided. On that basis, it struck down the protection and rejected the constitutional rule established by Humphrey’s Executor. This is the binding holding of the Court.
The dissent: preserve the precedent and Congress’s authority to protect independence
The three dissenting justices disputed the majority’s constitutional and historical analysis. They defended Humphrey’s Executor and Congress’s authority to protect the FTC’s independence through removal limits. Those arguments explain the disagreement but did not prevail.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What the decision means—and what it does not establish
The ruling removes the FTC Act’s for-cause barrier to presidential removal of FTC commissioners. It marks a decisive change from the rule that governed the commission under Humphrey’s Executor. The decision described here concerns FTC commissioners; the available ruling does not, by itself, establish how removal protections at other agencies should be treated.
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