Supreme Court allows Trump to fire for now remaining Democrat on FTC

"The U.S. Supreme Court allowed President Trump to fire for now Rebecca Slaughter, a Democratic member of the Federal Trade Commission, while it hears arguments in the case in December. At issue is whether the president has the authority to dismiss the heads of those agencies that are protected by Congress. The court's three liberals Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented."

"Kagan, in a dissent joined by her fellow liberals, wrote the court had "all but overturned" the Humphrey's Executor precedent. That's the precedent set in 1935 when the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the president could not dismiss FTC commissioners the way he could his own Cabinet or other members of his administration. It said that Congress had created the FTC to perform quasi-judicial, quasi-legislative functions and therefore intended it to be politically independent."

The Supreme Court allowed President Trump to fire Rebecca Slaughter, a Democratic Federal Trade Commission member, temporarily while it hears arguments in December. The central question is whether the president has authority to dismiss heads of agencies that Congress insulated from removal. Three liberal justices—Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson—dissented from the order. Kagan wrote that the court had "all but overturned" the Humphrey's Executor precedent, which in 1935 barred presidents from removing FTC commissioners as they do Cabinet officers. A lower court had blocked the firing; the Supreme Court reversed that block.

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