Rebecca Slaughter: FTC Commissioner Fired by Trump Sparks Supreme Court Case

Rebecca Slaughter was helping with rehearsal for her child's elementary school play — a performance of Beauty and the Beast — when the email arrived in March 2025. It was from the Trump administration, notifying her that she had been fired from her position as a Democratic member of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

“My stomach just dropped,” Slaughter told reporters. She wasn't surprised — similar firings were happening at other agencies with statutory protections — but she had hoped the FTC would be spared. “I was really hoping that it would avoid us, both because I love my job, but really more because I love the agency. I just knew this was going to be a big fight and pretty unpleasant and pretty destructive to this institution that I really care about.”

That firing became the foundation of Trump v. Slaughter, the Supreme Court case that overruled the 1935 precedent Humphrey's Executor v. United States. In a 6-3 decision authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, the Court held that the FTC's for-cause removal protection for its commissioners violates the Constitution's separation of powers. Any officer who exercises executive power — which the FTC “unquestionably” does, Roberts wrote — must be removable by the president at will.

The ruling effectively gives the president free rein to fire members of independent agencies. Since Donald Trump took office again in January 2025, he has fired more than 50 officials from federal agencies. The administration openly sought to overturn Humphrey's Executor, and Trump v. Slaughter delivered exactly that.

Slaughter now wonders whether “the civil service survives at all” after the ruling. Other fired officials have called the decision a “dagger in the heart” of civil service protections, warning that independent federal agencies will be opened to corruption and manipulation at the whim of the president.

The FTC Firing That Changed Administrative Law

For over a century, independent regulatory commissions occupied an odd corner of the administrative state. They write rules with the force of law, and they investigate and enforce those rules, but they sat outside the ordinary chain of presidential accountability that governs the rest of the executive branch. Humphrey's Executor had protected FTC commissioners from being fired without cause, insulating them from direct political pressure.

Trump v. Slaughter changed all that. The majority opinion, joined by the Court's conservative wing, concluded that the Constitution does not permit Congress to limit the president's removal power over officers exercising executive authority. The dissent, authored by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, and the concurrence by Justice Neil Gorsuch both warned of troubling implications for agency independence.

The policy consequences are mixed. On one hand, the decision affirms a president's ability to oversee the regulations of independent agencies, just as he does executive branch agencies. Presidents since at least 1981 have exercised control over how executive branch agencies develop and issue regulations to ensure they are consistent with law, address a compelling public need, and provide net social benefits. President Bill Clinton's Executive Order 12,866, still in effect today, requires agencies to conduct cost-benefit analysis for major rules.

On the other hand, critics argue that the ruling removes a critical check on presidential power. Independent agencies like the FTC were designed to operate with bipartisan membership and fixed terms precisely to prevent any single administration from weaponizing them against political opponents or favored industries.

Slaughter's Unlikely Role

Slaughter was originally appointed to the FTC by Trump in 2018 — a Democratic member placed on the commission by a Republican president. Her firing and subsequent legal challenge made her the named plaintiff in a case that dismantled nearly a century of administrative law.

Her personal story — receiving a termination email while helping with a school play — underscores the human dimension of a legal battle that otherwise unfolds in abstract constitutional terms. She has described the experience as “pretty unpleasant and pretty destructive” to the FTC as an institution.

The case has also drawn attention to the broader purge of federal officials. Since January 2025, more than 50 officials have been fired from agencies including the FTC, the National Labor Relations Board, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and others. The administration has argued that these firings are necessary to ensure democratic accountability over the administrative state.

What Comes Next

The immediate effect of Trump v. Slaughter is that every FTC commissioner now serves at the president's pleasure. The same logic likely applies to other independent agencies whose leaders had for-cause removal protections, though the decision's exact scope may be debated in future cases.

For Slaughter, the ruling raises existential questions about the civil service. “I wonder whether the civil service survives at all,” she said, reflecting on an institution that has operated under the same basic framework since the New Deal.

The decision also creates uncertainty for businesses that rely on consistent regulatory enforcement. If commissioners can be removed at will, the FTC's enforcement priorities could shift dramatically with each administration — or even within a single administration if the president changes his mind.

Some legal scholars have suggested that Trump v. Slaughter may force independent agencies to provide more rigorous justifications for new rules, knowing they no longer have the insulation of for-cause removal. Others worry that the ruling will chill the kind of long-term regulatory planning that requires independence from political cycles.

The debate over Trump v. Slaughter is far from settled. As Slaughter and other fired officials have made clear, the ruling represents a fundamental shift in how the federal government operates — one whose full consequences will take years to understand.