Supreme Court Sounds Ready to Let Trump Control All Federal Agencies

It’s not looking so good for former Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter—-or any Democratic appointees at federal agencies.

While hearing arguments Monday in a case challenging Slaughter’s removal earlier this year, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority seemed primed to overturn Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, a 1935 case that established Congress can pass laws limiting the president’s ability to fire executive officials of independent federal agencies.

The court’s six conservative justices voiced concerns that agencies wielding executive power weren’t really accountable to the executive, Bloomberg Law reported. “Tomorrow we could have the Labor Commission, the Education Commission, the Environmental Commission, rather than Departments of Interior and so forth,” warned Justice Neil Gorsuch.

The court’s liberal justices weren’t convinced. Justice Elena Kagan said allowing Slaughter’s removal would place “massive, uncontrolled, unchecked power in the hands of the president.”

Only Justice Brett Kavanaugh voiced “concerns” about handing over the Federal Reserve, which is meant to set monetary policy without political interference.

The Supreme Court previously approved Donald Trump’s emergency request to remove Slaughter, despite the rulings of two lower courts and a law stating that presidents may only legally remove FTC commissioners for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” At the time, Kagan torched her colleagues for empowering Trump to remove “any member he wishes, for any reason or no reason at all.”

“And he may thereby extinguish the agencies’ bipartisanship and independence,” Kagan wrote in her opinion. Slaughter was the only Democrat left on the FTC board.

Breaking with precedent on Humphrey will allow Trump to continue his unfettered firing campaign against Democratic appointees, but it would also grant the president unprecedented control over agencies that regulate the economy, the stock market, as well as federal campaign finance and communication rules.

The Supreme Court previously allowed Trump to oust Gwynne Wilcox at the National Labor Relations Board and Cathy Harris at the Merit Systems Protection Board—whose terms weren’t due to expire until 2029—as well as three Democratic appointees on the Consumer Product Safety Commission.