Supreme Court Overrules Humphrey's Executor, Lets the President Fire FTC Commissioners at Will

Supreme Court Overrules Humphrey's Executor, Lets the President Fire FTC Commissioners at Will

The U.S. Supreme Court held on June 29, 2026 that the for-cause removal protection shielding Federal Trade Commission members violates the President's Article II authority, and it overruled Humphrey's Executor v. United States (1935). The 6 to 3 decision in Trump v. Slaughter upheld President Trump's removal of FTC Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter and unsettles the independence of the agency that enforces most federal privacy and consumer-protection law.

Information last verified on July 6, 2026. This is a developing story; we update it as the record changes.

Status: Decided on the merits by the U.S. Supreme Court on June 29, 2026 (No. 25-332); the judgment was reversed and remanded. This is a final ruling on the removal question, not an interim order.

Jurisdiction scope: This article addresses a decision of the United States Supreme Court interpreting the federal Constitution's separation of powers and the FTC Act. It concerns the structure of a federal agency, not the substance of any state privacy statute. For the enforcement work the FTC does, see our guides on US data broker registration laws and how to opt out of data brokers.

What Happened

The Supreme Court issued its opinion in Trump v. Slaughter, No. 25-332, on June 29, 2026, reversing and remanding the case in a 6 to 3 vote. The question was narrow but consequential: may Congress require that the President show "inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office" before removing a member of the Federal Trade Commission? That standard appears in Section 1 of the FTC Act, codified at 15 U.S.C. Section 41. The Court answered no.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion, joined by Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. Justice Clarence Thomas joined the opinion except for one part, and Justice Gorsuch filed a concurrence. Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

The case arose after President Trump removed FTC Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, a Democratic appointee, in 2025 without asserting cause. Slaughter sued, arguing the removal was unlawful because the FTC Act protects commissioners from at-will dismissal. The Supreme Court held that the for-cause protection cannot constitutionally bind the President's removal power over the FTC's current leadership, and it upheld the removal. Slaughter does not regain her seat under the ruling.

The majority framed its decision as a correction of precedent that no longer fit the Court's separation-of-powers doctrine. As Chief Justice Roberts wrote for the Court, "Humphrey's framework, in short, has not withstood the test of time." The Court expressly overruled Humphrey's Executor v. United States, 295 U.S. 602 (1935), the decision that for 90 years had allowed Congress to structure the FTC as an independent, multi-member commission removable only for cause.

The majority drew one notable boundary. It preserved the independence of the Federal Reserve, describing that body as a uniquely structured, quasi-private entity that follows in the distinct historical tradition of the First and Second Banks of the United States. The Court's reasoning about the FTC did not, by its own terms, extend to the Fed.

In dissent, Justice Sotomayor warned that discarding Humphrey's Executor would destabilize the many multi-member agencies Congress built on that foundation, writing that the majority "gives the President a power unknown even to the English Crown." The dissent argued the majority overturned a durable, workable precedent that Congress and the public had relied on for decades.

What the Law Actually Says

The dispute sits at the center of the Constitution's separation of powers. Article II vests "the executive Power" in the President and charges the President to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed." The Supreme Court has long read those clauses to give the President substantial control over officials who wield executive power, including, in most cases, the power to remove them.

The tension is old. In Myers v. United States, 272 U.S. 52 (1926), the Court held the President could remove an executive officer (a postmaster) without Senate involvement. Nine years later, Humphrey's Executor v. United States, 295 U.S. 602 (1935), carved out an exception: Congress could protect the commissioners of a multi-member body like the FTC from at-will removal, on the theory that the agency exercised "quasi-legislative" and "quasi-judicial" functions rather than purely executive ones. That exception is what made the modern independent agency possible.

In recent years the Court narrowed the exception. Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, 591 U.S. 197 (2020), struck down for-cause protection for the single director of the CFPB, distinguishing Humphrey's Executor rather than overruling it. Trump v. Slaughter completes that trajectory: the Court concluded that the FTC today exercises substantial executive power, that the 1935 characterization no longer holds, and that the removal protection therefore cannot stand.

The practical machinery the case touches is the FTC itself. Congress created the Commission in 1914 and gave it five members, no more than three from one political party, serving staggered seven-year terms. Section 5 of the FTC Act, 15 U.S.C. Section 45, empowers the Commission to police "unfair or deceptive acts or practices," the authority behind most of the agency's privacy and consumer-protection docket. That includes the data-broker actions, junk-fee cases, and credit-reporting enforcement the Commission has pursued, several of which this site has covered, including the FTC order against data broker Kochava, the Amazon Fair Credit Reporting Act penalty, and the Hopper junk-fee settlement. The removal ruling does not repeal any of those orders; it changes who controls the officials who bring them.

Analysis: Why This Matters

The following is analysis from the Recording Law Editorial Team.

For most of the last century, the FTC's design assumed a degree of distance from the White House. A bipartisan, five-member commission removable only for cause was meant to make enforcement priorities durable across administrations. Trump v. Slaughter removes the legal guarantee behind that distance. Commissioners who can be dismissed at will serve at the President's pleasure, which means the agency's enforcement posture can shift more directly with each administration's priorities.

That structural change is what makes this ruling relevant to privacy and consumer law, even though the opinion says nothing about data brokers or subscriptions. The FTC is the closest thing the United States has to a national privacy regulator. It is the body that has policed sensitive-location-data sales, hidden fees, and misuse of credit-reporting data under Section 5. When the leadership of that body becomes more responsive to executive direction, the continuity of those enforcement lines becomes a policy question rather than a structural given.

The decision is also narrower than some early reactions suggested. The Court resolved a question about removal, not about the validity of any pending case, and it expressly preserved the Federal Reserve's independence. How far the reasoning reaches into other multi-member agencies, such as the National Labor Relations Board or the Securities and Exchange Commission, is a matter courts and commentators are already debating, and it is not something this ruling settles for every agency at once. What the ruling settles is the FTC, and the 90-year-old precedent that had defined it.

How This Affects You

For consumers, the immediate legal landscape is unchanged. Existing FTC orders, rules, and settlements remain in effect unless a court or the Commission itself modifies them, and the substantive privacy protections in state statutes are untouched by a decision about federal agency structure. Nothing about this ruling changes a resident's rights under a state privacy law.

What may change over time is enforcement emphasis. Because the FTC drives much of the federal activity around data brokers, junk fees, and credit reporting, shifts in the Commission's leadership can affect which practices draw federal scrutiny and which do not. Readers who rely on state-level tools, such as data-broker opt-outs and state privacy-law rights, retain those regardless of the federal picture. Courts have generally treated state privacy statutes as independent of federal agency enforcement, so state remedies do not rise or fall with the FTC's structure.

This is general legal information, not legal advice. It covers a federal constitutional ruling and reflects sources verified on July 6, 2026. Laws and enforcement priorities change, and this story is developing; consult a lawyer licensed in your jurisdiction about your specific situation.

Sources

• Trump v. Slaughter, No. 25-332, 609 U.S. ___ (2026) (slip opinion)
• Supreme Court of the United States, docket for No. 25-332
• Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute, 15 U.S.C. Section 41 (Federal Trade Commission; membership; removal)
• Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute, 15 U.S.C. Section 45 (FTC Act Section 5, unfair or deceptive acts or practices)
• Humphrey's Executor v. United States, 295 U.S. 602 (1935)
• Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, 591 U.S. 197 (2020)

Related articles

• US data broker registration laws and the Delete Act
• FTC bars data broker Kochava from selling sensitive location data
• FTC fines Amazon over FCRA identity-theft records
• FTC fines Hopper $35 million over hidden junk fees
• How to opt out of data brokers

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Last updated: 2026-07-06. This is a developing story; details verified as of 2026-07-06.