Checkpoint: SCOTUS Expands Executive Power

KATRIN BOLOVTSOVA

Every year at the end of June, the Supreme Court releases decisions on the most complex or controversial cases heard that year. This past June was no different. In the last few weeks, the Court has released decisions on campaign financing (National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Comm’n), transgender athletes in sports (West Virginia v. B. P. J.), absentee voting (Watson v. Republican National Committee), birthright citizenship (Trump v. Barbara), executive power over federal agencies (Trump v. Slaughter, Trump v. Cook), and more. All these decisions will affect the legal framework of our nation as long as the precedents hold, but the Trump v. Slaughter and Trump v. Cook decisions are likely to affect not only the political and economic situations in the United States, but also the entire global economy. In January 2025, President Trump fired Rebecca Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya, the two Democrat-appointed commissioners of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). In Trump v. Slaughter, the Court ruled on the side of the Trump Administration, deciding that the executive branch has the power to fire the head of the FTC at will and without process. Before this ruling, commissioners of the FTC were protected by statutory removal restrictions; the Supreme Court struck down those restrictions. Conversely, in Trump v. Cook, the Court ruled against the Trump Administration after the August 2025 firing of Lisa Cook, a governor of the Federal Reserve. The Court decided that a governor of the Federal Reserve is protected from at-will removal by the President. 

The Slaughter decision was a 6-3 ruling with the Supreme Court split along the standard ideological lines. Chief Justice Roberts delivered the majority opinion, and he was joined by Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett. Justice Sotomayor filed a dissenting opinion and was joined by Justices Kagan and Jackson. The Court’s decision overruled a 91-year-old precedent, Humphrey's Executor v. United States, which had upheld Congress’ imposition of removal protections for members of the FTC. The removal protections in question require some reason for the President to remove a commissioner or board member, such as “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” The Trump Administration, however, maintained that the firings of Slaughter and Bedoya were permissible without citing one of those reasons, and that the restrictions on removal of commissioners are an unconstitutional constraint on the President's authority over the executive branch. The Trump Administration argued that leaders of independent regulatory bodies are no different from any other agency officials and therefore, may be removed at will by the President.  

The overturned Humphrey’s decision had been applied to protect all multimember boards that were intended to operate with some independence from presidential control. The Slaughter decision specifies the FTC, but the precedent will apply broadly to other independent regulatory commissions previously protected by the Humphrey’s decision, like the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). These regulatory bodies were founded by Congress and deemed so integral to the framework of our nation that Congress imposed strict guardrails to make sure that independent regulatory commissions remain independent, that their leadership does not change under every new administration, and that these bodies are run by experts in the relevant fields rather than unqualified appointees. This expansion of the President’s authority over the executive branch threatens the independence of federal watchdogs and opens the door to using political pressure to manipulate regulatory bodies. The FTC, SEC, NLRB, etc., were designed to be nonpartisan organizations. A commissioner of the FTC should not have to choose between keeping their job and bending to the will of the President. 

The majority opinion in the Slaughter decision concluded that, because FTC commissioners exercise executive power, they must be accountable to the President. This is a departure from the previous jurisprudence on the subject, where the Court deemed independent regulatory commissions “neither political nor executive, but predominantly quasi-judicial and quasi-legislative.” In the dissent, Justice Sotomayor argued that the Court was overturning over a century of law and practice that dates back to the founding of the first independent agency in 1887, and that there was no Constitutional provision addressing the removal of independent agency members from office. Because the Constitution is not clear on whether removing members of independent agencies falls within the scope of executive authority, the Court should not just assume so and should not baselessly allocate the President authority to fire subordinates without proper cause. 

The same day that the Supreme Court released its decision in Trump v. Slaughter, June 29, 2026, they also released a decision in Trump v. Cook. The Cook decision created a narrow exception to the precedent set in the Slaughter decision and specified that a member of the board of the Federal Reserve, in this case, Lisa Cook, cannot be fired by the President at will. The Federal Reserve is the only independent agency that Congress can protect from removal with statutory guardrails. Trump v. Cook was decided in a 5-4 split, with Justices Roberts, Kavanaugh, Jackson, Kagan, and Sotomayor in the majority and Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Barrett in dissent. The majority upheld the removal protections for Federal Reserve governors, arguing that the Federal Reserve has a “distinct historical tradition” that separates it from other government agencies. The majority also sought to separate the Federal Reserve from other government agencies by discussing its 14-year terms and its founding long before the FTC and other agencies. The majority’s reasons for singling out the Federal Reserve don't paint a very convincing picture of its uniqueness. Accusations of corruption have followed the Roberts Court for years now, and both Justices Thomas and Alito have faced bribery allegations. Perhaps the justices themselves and the moneyed interests with influence on the Court would prefer not to have their capital put in jeopardy by volatile leadership in the United States’ national bank, and that’s why they ruled that the Federal Reserve is so exceptional. The influence of the Federal Reserve is outsized compared to that of the other independent regulatory bodies, and, while bodies like the FTC and SEC do influence the national and global economies, the dismissal of a governor of the Federal Reserve poses a much greater threat to economic stability. 

With the Slaughter decision, the Supreme Court created a new precedent for the treatment of federal agencies, and with the Cook decision, the Court protected the Federal Reserve from the volatility imposed on other agencies by the Slaughter decision. In these two highly consequential rulings, the Supreme Court drastically expanded executive power, handing the Trump Administration a victory over Congress and the Constitution, all while protecting the capital of the wealthy.