30. Federal Trade Commission · Major · Needs Congress
End the FTC's independent status or its law enforcement activities
Printed page 873 30. Federal Trade Commission
“it is for this reason that conservatives have long believed in either ending law enforcement activities of independent agencies or ending their independent status.”
What has happened
- Done
Trump v. Slaughter, 609 U.S. ___ (2026): the Court held 6–3 (Roberts, C.J.) that the FTC Act's for-cause removal provision is contrary to the separation of powers and overruled Humphrey's Executor. FTC commissioners now serve at the President's pleasure; the Commission's independent status is ended, by judgment rather than by the statute the Mandate contemplated.
- Attempted
The Supreme Court stayed the district court's order (after the Chief Justice's administrative stay of 2025-09-08), granted certiorari before judgment and set the case for the December sitting on whether the FTC's removal protections violate the separation of powers and whether Humphrey's Executor should be overruled; Slaughter was out of office again.
- Blocked
Judge AliKhan (D.D.C.) granted Slaughter summary judgment, declared her removal ultra vires under Humphrey's Executor and enjoined interference with her duties; Bedoya's claims were dismissed as moot after he resigned. The D.C. Circuit denied a stay pending appeal on 2025-09-02 (Rao, J., dissenting).
- Attempted
The President removed the FTC's two Democratic commissioners, Rebecca Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya, without stating a statutory cause, citing his Article II authority — a direct test of the for-cause protection that makes the FTC independent. Chairman Ferguson endorsed the removals the next day; the commissioners sued in D.D.C. on 2025-03-27 (Slaughter v. Trump, 1:25-cv-00909).
- Attempted
Executive Order 14215 subjected independent regulatory agencies, the FTC included, to OIRA regulatory review, White House liaison and the President's and Attorney General's controlling legal interpretations — supervision by directive, with the FTC Act's for-cause removal clause still in place.
Research log
What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence
Research notes
- The removal-power question is the Humphrey’s Executor Recommendation (#1561, Chapter 17); this file records the FTC-specific trail — the removals, the injunction, the stay and the judgment — because the Mandate’s Chapter 30 ask is about the FTC. Both files should show the same 2026-06-29 outcome.
- done rests on a court judgment, not a statute: 15 U.S.C. 41’s for-cause clause is still on the books but unenforceable. The Mandate’s other branch (“ending law enforcement activities”) was not pursued; the FTC continues to enforce (see #2233).
- Slaughter’s district-court docket (https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69801190/slaughter-v-trump/) and the D.C. Circuit docket (https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/70844404/rebecca-slaughter-v-donald-trump/) are in the Corpus; docket pages cannot be read without authentication and are leads. The three opinions were read from their courts’ own PDFs.
- No FTC or White House release on the June 2026 judgment was found on the FTC press-release listing (fetched 2026-08-26); the FTC statement of 2025-03-19 is the agency’s only allowlisted word on the removals.
- Action
- eliminate
- Object
- independent status of the Federal Trade Commission
- ID
- 2237