SCOTUS 6-3 overturned Humphrey's Executor, holding presidents may fire independent agency commissioners at will

On June 29, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Humphrey's Executor v. United States (1935) in a 6-3 ruling authored by Chief Justice Roberts in Trump v. Slaughter, holding that the president may fire members of independent multi-member agencies — including the FTC, NLRB, EEOC, MSPB, and CPSC — without cause and without congressional constraint. The case arose from Trump's March 2025 firing of FTC Commissioners Rebecca Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya, both Democrats whose terms had not expired. Congress had designed those agencies with bipartisan balance requirements and for-cause removal protections; the majority held those statutory protections are constitutionally unenforceable.

The ruling expands on the Supreme Court's 2020 decision in Seila Law v. CFPB, which had stripped removal protections from single-director agencies. Roberts wrote for a six-justice majority — joined by Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett — holding that Humphrey's Executor "cannot be squared" with the president's constitutional duty to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed." Justice Sotomayor, joined by Kagan and Jackson, dissented: "Today's decision is grievously wrong. ... The Court has handed the President a tool to transform expert independent agencies into instruments of his will."

Trump had already fired commissioners at the NLRB, EEOC, MSPB, and CPSC without cause prior to the ruling, in anticipation that the courts would validate the approach. The ruling eliminates any remaining legal basis for reinstatement of those commissioners. In a companion ruling in Trump v. Cook, the Court issued a separate 5-4 decision temporarily blocking Trump from removing Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook — carving out a partial exception for the Fed on the grounds that its monetary-policy independence is more deeply embedded in statute and prior precedent — while returning the matter to lower courts for further review.