Chief Justice John Roberts issued a temporary stay allowing President Trump to remove FTC Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter.
Slaughter, the lone Democrat on the Commission, had recently been reinstated by a divided appeals court panel.
The administration argued that her return undermined presidential authority, while her attorneys cited long-standing precedent.
High court action halts reinstatement
Chief Justice John Roberts on Monday issued a temporary stay permitting President Trump to again remove Federal Trade Commission Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter, who had been reinstated just days earlier by a divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.
Slaughter, the lone Democrat on the five-member commission, had been fired without cause earlier this year along with Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya. Both challenged their dismissals, arguing that the FTC is an independent agency whose members are protected from at-will removal.
Administration presses constitutional argument
In seeking the emergency order, Solicitor General D. John Sauer urged the Supreme Court to consider the case on the merits, saying the reinstatement “harms the Executive Branch by permitting a removed officer to continue exercising executive power despite the President’s objection.”
He argued that “Article II precludes a court from ordering the reinstatement of an executive officer removed by the President,” and stressed that the modern FTC wields far greater executive power than in 1935, when the Supreme Court upheld for-cause protections in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States.
The administration emphasized that today’s FTC can initiate lawsuits, issue rules, conduct investigations, and engage in foreign relations—powers not at issue in the 1935 case.
Slaughter’s attorneys cite precedent
Slaughter’s attorneys countered that the Humphrey’s Executor ruling directly governs the case, since it addressed the same statutory protections now at stake. They said the district court correctly found that the facts “almost identically mirror” those of the earlier precedent.
They also argued that no harm would come from Slaughter serving again on the commission. With a three-Republican majority, they said, there was “no reasonable prospect that returning Ms. Slaughter to her position will result in any meaningful regulatory action opposed by the Commission majority.”
Bedoya’s challenge was dismissed as moot after his resignation earlier this year.