The Supreme Court on Monday dramatically expanded presidential power, upholding President Donald Trump’s firing of the heads of independent federal agencies with one important exception: the Federal Reserve.
The justices allowed Fed governor Lisa Cook to stay in her job while she fights the Republican president’s effort to fire her over allegations of mortgage fraud, which she has denied.
But other than at the nation’s central bank, with its role of setting interest rates, the court held that presidents have free rein to fire agency heads at will, despite federal laws that require a cause for such dismissals and a 91-year-old decision that had limited executive authority.
With the six conservative justices in the majority, the nine-member court jettisoned its unanimous decision in Humphrey’s Executor that had limited when presidents can fire agency board members – in part to try to ensure decision-making free of political influence.
“We hold that such protection from removal is contrary to the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court.
Support for Trump’s position
The justices ruled in the case of former Federal Trade Commission member Rebecca Slaughter, whom Trump fired without cause despite a provision of federal law that requires a reason. The logic of the decision extends to other agencies, including the National Labour Relations Board, the Merit Systems Protection Board and the Consumer Product Safety Commission, where Trump has also fired board members.
Trump voiced his approval in a Truth Social post. “It is such an Honor to be the sitting President who won this Historic and Unprecedented Ruling, one of the most important ever given with respect to Presidential Powers," he wrote.
The court had already signalled its support for the Trump administration’s position, over the liberals’ objection, by allowing Slaughter and the board members of other agencies to be removed from their jobs even as their legal challenges continued.
No president before Trump had sought to wrest control of the agencies that regulate wide swaths of American life, including nuclear energy, product safety and labour relations. But at arguments in Slaughter’s case in December, the six conservatives, including three appointed by Trump, seemed more concerned about issuing a ruling that would endure than handing too much power to Trump.
Their rhetoric was reminiscent of the presidential immunity case in 2024 that allowed Trump to avoid prosecution for his efforts to undo his 2020 presidential election loss to Democrat Joe Biden. The court is writing a decision “for the ages", Justice Neil Gorsuch said then.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in a dissent she summarised aloud in the courtroom, said the ruling could lead to “submission, instability, and even oppression".
“The president, to be sure, emerges with more power than ever before. That power was given to him by six justices on this court, not the people or the Constitution," Sotomayor said.
