Supreme Court allows firing of FTC commissioners, ends agency independence

The Supreme Court just placed once-independent agencies more firmly under presidential control. The court ruled in Slaughter v. Trump with a 6-3 vote that President Donald Trump had the authority to fire the Federal Trade Commission’s two Democratic commissioners, even though it broke with decades of prior legal precedent at the time. The justices have officially killed that precedent, based on a 1935 Supreme Court case known as Humphrey’s Executor, which determined that independent agency commissioners could only be fired for cause. The ruling represents the latest expansion of presidential power, this time under the principle of the unitary executive theory , whose subscribers believe that the president ultimately has all the power over the executive branch. “Although it is up to the Senate to decide whether to confirm those with whom the President would prefer to work, neither Congress nor the courts may saddle him with those with whom he cannot work,” says the syllabus for the majority opinion, delivered by Chief Justice John Roberts. “Subordinates who exercise the President’s power are subject to removal by him. …