On June 29, 2026, the United States Supreme Court overturned Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, a nearly century-old precedent that limited presidential authority over independent agency officials.
The landmark ruling came in the case of Trump v. Slaughter, in which a former Federal Trade Commission commissioner challenged the president’s authority to remove her from her position.
The decision effectively means the president can fire commissioners of independent federal agencies at will, without needing to demonstrate cause for their removal.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opinion for the Court’s six-person majority, arguing that prior courts had wrongly interpreted the Humphrey’s Executor precedent for decades.
Roberts wrote: “it is not clear to us why Congress would need to allow the President any say in firings,” questioning the logic of partial independence granted to agency heads.
The majority opinion continued: “these officers exercise the President’s power, not their own, and thus must be responsible to him. We do not allow intrusions on Article I nor on Article III. We see no reason to allow intrusions on Article II either.”
The ruling is expected to bolster the president’s position in other ongoing legal disputes, including his dismissal of leadership at the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
Justice Sotomayor, joined by Justices Kagan and Jackson, issued a strong dissent, arguing that “the text of the Constitution, along with its history, the longstanding practices of the political branches, and the precedents of this Court, make clear that Congress may limit the causes for which the heads of Commissions like the FTC can be removed by the President.”
On the same day, the Court issued a separate ruling in Trump v. Cook, concerning the without-cause firing of Federal Reserve Board of Governors member Lisa Cook.
In that case, Chief Justice Roberts wrote for a five-person majority that accepting the Trump administration’s argument “would in effect transform the Federal Reserve’s for-cause protection into at-will employment — an interpretive leap out of step with the statute Congress enacted and our Nation’s tradition of central banking protected from political interference.”
The Court declined to stay a lower court’s order allowing Cook to remain in her position while her case continues to proceed through the legal system.
The two rulings together signal a significant shift in the balance of power between the executive branch and historically independent federal regulatory bodies.
Legal analysts expect the full impact of overturning Humphrey’s Executor on agencies such as the FTC and the CPSC to unfold gradually as further cases make their way through the courts.