Supreme Court Agrees to Reconsider Humphrey's Executor, Review Trump's Power to Fire Agency Heads

The Supreme Court agreed to hear a rush appeal deciding whether President Trump acted lawfully in firing board members leading independent federal agencies, setting up oral arguments for December 2025. The case will reconsider the landmark 1935 precedent Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, which established that Congress can require presidents to show cause before dismissing board members overseeing independent agencies.

The case arose from Trump’s dismissal of Federal Trade Commission Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter and other independent agency leaders, actions that lower courts had blocked as potentially unconstitutional. Trump argued that the 90-year-old Humphrey’s Executor precedent should be overturned, claiming the Constitution grants him unlimited removal power over all executive branch officials.

Legal scholars warned that overturning Humphrey’s Executor would fundamentally restructure the federal government by eliminating the independence of agencies like the Federal Reserve, Securities and Exchange Commission, Federal Communications Commission, and dozens of other regulators designed to operate free from direct presidential control. The decision could determine whether Trump can effectively dismantle the regulatory state by replacing agency leadership with political loyalists. Justice Kavanaugh had previously suggested in a 2020 concurrence that the Court should formally strike down the precedent, foreshadowing this major constitutional showdown.