Executive Authority, Presidential Firings in Federal Agencies, and Trump v. Slaughter
President Trump’s first eight months in office have been defined by a concerted effort to reshape or eliminate federal agencies. From dramatically increased regulatory oversight in the Federal Emergency Management Agency to attempts to close The Department of Education and firings in the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), these actions can be understood within the context of the President’s policy objectives and desire to increase government efficiency. [1] On February 11th, President Trump signed an executive order outlining his “Workforce Optimization Initiative" involving massive labor cuts and agency reorganizations. [2] Whether through personnel restructurings, mass firings, targeted removals, or resignation offers from DOGE, more than 275,000 employees were terminated in Trump’s first month in office. [3] A rush of suits, such as Trump v. Wilcox [4] and Storch v. Hegseth, [5] question the legality of these removals. Of particular interest is Trump v. Slaughter. [6] Involving the removal of Rebecca Slaughter from her position in the Federal Trade Commission, the case is set to determine whether Trump has authority to fire members of federal agencies at-will. Considering recent debates over executive authority and maximizing the efficiency of federal agencies, this case has the potential to dramatically impact trends in executive authority and strengthen Separation of Powers by preventing the executive from firing members of agencies without cause.
After Slaughter’s March 18 firing, she filed suit, declaring that her removal was unconstitutional because she was not removed with cause, violating the precedent of Humphrey’s Executor v. United States. [7] The Supreme Court is set to hear this case this December, but has allotted the federal government a stay, allowing them to remove her from her position in the interim. Slaughter’s case centers around the applicability and continuing validity of Humphrey’s Executor. [8] The 1935 decision concerns President Roosevelt’s firing of FTC commissioner William E. Humphrey since Humphrey did not align with Roosevelt’s political goals. Humphrey’s executor sued for back pay, arguing that at-will firings of FTC commissioners were unconstitutional. In the 1914 Federal Trade Commission Act, Congress noted that a President could fire a commissioner for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” The justices had to determine whether the President had complete authority to fire commissioners at will or was limited to having power over those who acted in the ways described above. [9]
The Court ruled in favor of Humphrey’s executor, arguing that the inclusion of specific directions about firing a commissioner implied Congress had intended to limit Presidential authority. In its opinion, the justices attempted to draw a line between executive agencies that the President has control over and the executive powers of the legislature or judiciary, which he is understood to be distinct from. This distinction was made through the language of “quasi-legislative and quasi-judicial organizations” existing as an extension of Congress, with any executive actions being taken on the basis of legislative authority so separate from executive control. To allow the executive to fire such commissioners at will would force them to appeal to the whims of partisan politics, gutting a commission’s independence and effectiveness. The Court also acknowledged that a ruling which allowed the President to fire anyone at will would enable the executive to functionally control all of civil employment, hurting separations of power. This would be contrary to both Constitutional values and the intent of Congress in creating independent federal agencies.
However, Humphrey has been dramatically narrowed in the past 90 years, creating an environment that allows for vast Presidential overreaches. Specifically, the ambiguity within the terms quasi-legislative and quasi-judicial allows for changing determinations of what agencies merit protections from at-will firing. Qualifications could vary from either solely agencies without executive control, meaning ones that only have nonbinding recommendations, to agencies that are distinct from the legislative and judiciary but operationalize the executive aims of these branches. [10] These two interpretations are significantly different, with one meaning almost no agency other than the Federal Reserve would satisfy the for-cause firing requirements and the other allowing most agencies to access increased protections. The court has recently embraced the former classification, dramatically narrowing the scope of Humphrey by treating agencies with the authority to make independent rulings and take remediative action as an extension of the executive, rather than an executive arm of the legislature or judiciary.
Anyone concerned with present day Presidential overreach should think carefully about this changing precedent and its impact on executive practices. The status quo narrow interpretation of Humphrey’s Executor enables the President to functionally control many federal agencies by threatening a commissioner’s employment status. President Trump used this implied authority as legal justification for many of his personnel removals. If the courts rule in favor of the President, Trump v. Slaughter will serve as an official endorsement of this viewpoint, giving the President a blank check to completely reshape federal agencies to fit his political vision. In Justice Kagan’s dissent of the stay in Slaughter, she argues that these decisions, even without an explicit overturn of Humphrey’s Executor, will give the president undue authority over other branches of government, destroying Separation of Powers. [11]
Slaughter’s case will likely be decided similarly to those of Cathy Harris and Gwynne Wilcox, two former members of federal agencies who sued President Trump to question his authority to fire them without cause. [12] While the lower courts authorized a stay allowing the women to continue working, the Supreme Court gave Trump the authority to fire them, noting that the risk of them staying in power when they should not be was larger than the harm that would be caused from them being wrongfully removed. The solicitor general argues that Slaughter can be understood similarly to that of Wilcox and Boyle, with the current Federal Trade Commission more similar to the NLRB and MSPD referenced in those cases, which were ruled to have executive power, than the historical FTC of Humphrey’s Executor. Similarly, in 2020 case Seila Law v. CFPB, the Court determined that presidents have authority to remove people at will if they have executive control. [13]
As such, recent articles worrying about the possibility that this case could result in the overturning of Humphrey’s Executor [14] look at the issue from the wrong angle. [15] This perspective fails to account for the fact that the decision has already been dramatically narrowed, meaning that the status quo allows broad presidential authority. Furthermore, since Wilcox and Seila were decided not on the validity of Humphrey’s Executor, but a determination that its precedent does not extend to certain federal agencies, a ruling in favor of President Trump is unlikely to result in an overturn. Instead, this preoccupation about future harms obscures the fact that the perceived adverse implications of an overturn are already occurring as a result of the narrowing of Humphrey’s Executor’s. The question is not whether this case will result in an overturn but how a ruling’s endorsement of different understandings of Humphrey’s Executor will impact the independence of federal agencies and future Separation of Powers.
Considering recent implicit judicial endorsements of at-will firing, a ruling in favor of Slaughter would provide a large departure from current jurisprudence. This case has the potential to send a statement about the importance of Separation of Powers and federal agencies’ independence. The Court must explicitly analyze the implications of its recent interpretations of Humphrey’s Executor and how these impact executive control in order to determine the extent to which the executive should have authority over federal agencies. Amidst the context of President Trump’s changes to the government, and his application of the unitary executive theory, a ruling in favor of Slaughter has the potential to reshape understanding of presidential authority to limit any president’s ability to dramatically alter federal agencies.
Edited by Taran Srikonda
Endnotes
[1] The White House, “Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Reins in Independent Agencies to Restore a Government that Answers to the American People,” February 18, 2025, https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/02/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-reins-in-independent-agencies-to-restore-a-government-that-answers-to-the-american-people/.
[2] Russell T. Vought and Charles Ezell, “Guidance on Agency RIF and Reorganization Plans Requested by Implementing The President’s ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ Workforce Optimization Initiative,’ U.S. Office of Management and Budget, https://www.opm.gov/chcoc/latest-memos/guidance-on-agency-rif-and-reorganization-plans-requested-by-implementing-the-president-s-department-of-government-efficiency-workforce-optimization-initiative.pdf.
[3] Emily Peck, “Trump administration fires thousands of federal workers as purge deepens,” February 14, 2025, Axios, https://www.axios.com/2025/02/14/federal-workers-fired-energy-va-cdc-nih.
[4] Storch v. Hegseth, No. 1:2025cv00415.
[5] Trump v. Wilcox, 605 U.S. __, 145 S. Ct. 1415 (2025).
[6] D. John Sauer, “Application to stay the Judgment of the United States District court for the District of Columbia and Request for Administrative Stay,” Supreme Court Briefs, https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/25/25A264/373723/20250904153414999_Trump%20v.%20Slaughter%20Stay%20Appl.pdf.
[7] David McCabe, “Court Rules Trump’s Firing of F.T.C. Commissioner Was Illegal,” the New York Times, July 15, 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/17/technology/judge-trump-ftc-commissioner.html.
[8] Humphrey's Executor v. United States, 295 U.S. 602 (1935).
[9] 15 U.S.C. § 41.
[10] Nathaniel Wald Donahue, “What Does Humphrey’s Executor Mean?, by Nathaniel Wald Donahue, May 10, 2025, Yale Journal on Regulation, https://www.yalejreg.com/nc/what-does-humphreys-executor-mean-by-nathaniel-wald-donahue/.
[11] Slaughter, Pgs. 2-3.
[12] Harris v. Bessent (1:25-cv-00412) and Wilcox.
[13] Sauer Pg. 2.
[14] Anthony DiResta and Timothy Taylor, “Supreme Court's Potential Restructuring of FTC Could Have Substantial Implications,” Holland and Knight, September 24, 2025. https://www.hklaw.com/en/insights/publications/2025/09/supreme-courts-potential-restructuring-of-ftc.
[15] Abbie VanSickle and Ann Marimow, “Supreme Court Allows Trump to Fire F.T.C.,” the New York Times, September 22, 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/22/us/politics/supreme-court-ftc-commissioner-firing.html.