A majority of the Supreme Court today appeared ready to back President Donald Trump’s argument that he should be able to fire members of independent agencies that for nearly a century have been protected from presidential politics.
During more than two hours of oral arguments, the court’s 6-3 conservative wing leaned heavily into an attorney representing Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, whom Trump fired from the Federal Trade Commission in March – suggesting that his argument could lead to a significant remaking of the federal government.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a conservative, at one point asked Slaughter’s attorney about the argument that “independent agencies are not accountable to the people.”
Kavanaugh said the independent agencies are not accountable to voters but are nevertheless “exercising massive power over individual liberty and billion-dollar industries.”
Chief Justice John Roberts also pressed the attorney, Amit Agarwal, on the significance of a 1935 precedent, Humphrey’s Executor v. US, that Slaughter said should decide the case in her favor. In that decision – which has for years appeared in jeopardy of being overturned – the court ruled that Congress does have the power to require a president to show cause before firing independent agencies leaders.
But, Roberts said, that historic precedent has “nothing to do with what the FTC looks like today.” That decision, he said, “was addressing an agency that had very little, if any executive power.”
Roberts’ implication was that the modern FTC is wielding the kind of power that should fall within the president’s power.
A decision in the case is expected before the end of June.