SCOTUS says Trump can fire FTC commissioner

In a brief, unsigned order Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed President Donald Trump to fire Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter while her case moves forward. The court also said it would consider Slaughter’s case to decide if the president has the authority to fire the heads of independent agencies. The order calls for arguments to be held in December. Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented from the decision, arguing the move violated federal law by allowing Trump to remove officials without cause. They said the case threatens to end agencies’ bipartisanship and independence. The case could challenge the court’s 1935 decision in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States that allowed Congress to create regulatory agencies whose members could only be removed for cause.

What is the background of the case? Trump in March fired Slaughter and the other Democratic member of the FTC, Alvaro Bedoya. The pair sued the administration, and a federal judge in Washington, D.C., ordered the Trump administration to allow Slaughter to return to work while the case moved forward. The Supreme Court earlier this month temporarily suspended the order while the case continued. Meanwhile, Bedoya resigned in June.

The case follows two other cases in which federal employees sued the Trump administration after they were fired. Cathy Harris, a Democratic appointee to the Merit Systems Protection Board, and Gwynne Wilcox, a Democratic appointee to the National Labor Relations Board, claimed Trump did not have the authority to fire them. Two separate federal judges ordered the administration to allow them to continue to serve while their cases advanced.

Dig deeper: Read Christina Grube’s report on a July order from SCOTUS allowing Trump to fire members of the Consumer Product Safety Commission.