By The Editors

Written by The Editors

Estimated Reading Time: 2 minutes

The Supreme Court just tore up a 91-year-old rule that limited a president’s ability to fire the people who run independent federal agencies, with a dissent read aloud from the bench in a rare show of protest. Readers grounded in the Constitution’s separation of powers should read this ruling twice, because whatever power it hands this president belongs to the next one too, whoever that turns out to be. Here is what changed, who is affected well beyond the one commissioner at the center of the case, and why this cuts in more than one direction.

The Facts

• The Supreme Court overturned a 91-year-old precedent barring presidents from removing independent agency commissioners without cause, ruling 6-3 that Trump’s firing of FTC Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter was lawful.
• The precedent dates back to 1935, when the Court unanimously ruled against Franklin Roosevelt’s attempt to fire an FTC commissioner without cause.

What’s Being Said

• Chief Justice Roberts, writing for the majority, argued the old precedent had become “a result in search of a rationale” and that respecting precedent alone did not justify keeping it on the books.
• Justice Sotomayor read her dissent aloud from the bench, a rare move reserved for the strongest disagreements, warning that “the result is a President who emerges with far greater power than ever before”.
• President Trump reacted on Truth Social, declaring that “90 years of precedent has been COMPLETELY AND UNEQUIVOCALLY OVERRULED”.

The counterargument

• In a separate case decided the same week, the Court let Fed Governor Lisa Cook keep her seat for now on a narrower 5-4 vote, suggesting the justices are drawing a real line between agencies that set competition policy and the one that sets interest rates.
• Coverage has mostly stuck to the FTC, but the ruling’s logic reaches roughly two dozen multi-member agencies, including the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the National Labor Relations Board, meaning the practical fallout is only starting to show up.

 

A conservative movement that believes in accountable, limited government should welcome a president who can fire his own subordinates and, in the very same breath, remain just as wary of unchecked executive power, no matter whose name is on the door next.

This is a genuine expansion of presidential authority, not a partisan gift, and it will outlast this administration entirely. Founding-document conservatives should judge it on that basis, not on who currently benefits.

-The Editors

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