The Supreme Court on Monday temporarily allowed President Donald Trump to fire a Democratic member of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) after the commissioner sued over her dismissal.
The president, in March, fired Rebecca Kelly Slaughter — a former chief counsel to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York — along with another Democratic commissioner. On Monday, Chief Justice John Roberts issued a temporary administrative stay to allow more time to consider Trump’s request to remove Slaughter.
The order temporarily blocks a July ruling by a Biden-appointed judge that reinstated Slaughter until the case is adjudicated, but does not indicate how the Court will ultimately rule on Trump’s appeal.
The Supreme Court affirmed protections against removing leaders of “independent” agencies like the FTC without cause in its 1935 ruling Humphrey’s Executor v. United States. Citing that precedent, a federal judge reinstated Slaughter in July, and a federal appeals court upheld the decision in a 2-1 ruling on Wednesday.
“President Trump acted lawfully when he removed Rebecca Slaughter from the FTC. Indeed, the Supreme Court has twice in the last few months confirmed the President’s authority to remove the heads of executive agencies,” White House spokesperson Kush Desai told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “We look forward to being vindicated for a third time — and hopefully after this ruling, the lower courts will cease their defiance of Supreme Court orders.”
The Supreme Court has already sided with Trump in allowing him to fire members of the Merit Systems Protection Board and the National Labor Relations Board in May, as well as members of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) in July.
Trump removed Federal Reserve Board Gov. Lisa Cook on Aug. 25 over mortgage fraud allegations, and Cook has since sued over the decision.
In its July decision permitting Trump to fire CPSC members, the Supreme Court majority said the ruling should inform lower courts, though they are not “conclusive as to the merits.” Justice Brett Kavanaugh, in a concurring opinion, argued the Supreme Court should have taken up the case on the merits to consider reversing Humphrey’s Executor.
“When an emergency application turns on whether this Court will narrow or overrule a precedent, and there is at least a fair prospect (not certainty, but at least some reasonable prospect) that we will do so, the better practice often may be to both grant a stay and grant certiorari before judgment,” Kavanaugh wrote.
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