The Supreme Court has granted a temporary stay on a lower court decision preventing President Donald Trump from removing Rebecca Kelly Slaughter from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
An opinion released Monday (PDF) directs the court's clerk to add a briefing on the issue to the December 2025 argument session. It comes after Chief Justice John Roberts' initial stay and request for a response from the Democratic commissioner earlier this month (see below).
Justice Elena Kagan penned a dissent joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson. In it, Kagan suggested that her conservative colleagues "may be raring" to overturn Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, a unanimous Supreme Court decision giving FTC commissioners and other independent agency heads statutory protections from executive branch firings without cause.
"But until the deed is done, Humphrey’s controls, and prevents the majority from giving the President the unlimited removal power Congress denied him," she wrote. "Because the majority’s stay does just that, I respectfully dissent."
Sept. 8, 2025
The Supreme Court gave President Donald Trump a temporary green light on his removal of Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, one of two Democratic Federal Trade Commission (FTC) members he fired in March.
Slaughter, shortly after her ordered removal, sued to block what she described as “direct violation of a century of federal law and Supreme Court precedent.” She cited a 90-year-old decision, Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, that gave statutory tenure protections to FTC commissioners by requiring demonstration of cause under most circumstances.
Federal lawyers have argued that Trump has the authority to remove her as chief executive, and the president himself signed an executive order earlier this year outlining greater control over independent agencies like the FTC.
Slaughter has repeatedly stepped in and out of her old position amid the case’s developments and escalations. She had been reinstated by an appeals court just last week, to which the administration filed an emergency appeal to the top court.
In a two-sentence order (PDF) issued Monday, Chief Justice John Roberts put another stay on her return “pending further order” and said that Slaughter has until 4 p.m. Sept. 15 to file a response. Though not a decision, the ordered stay brings the White House closer to its goal of bringing Humphrey’s Executor in front of a court that has, so far, supported its efforts to expand executive power.
The FTC, now back to a 3-0 conservative panel, has already adopted a different stance than its predecessor on regulation and the healthcare industry.
In August, for example, Chair Andrew Ferguson applauded the rescindment of a Biden order instructing stronger antitrust enforcement that specifically called out hospital consolidation in rural communities, overly inhibitive patent laws in the prescription drug market and monopoly abuses among health insurers.
Thursday, the FTC demonstrated that break by issuing a request for information to help guide its enforcement surrounding employer noncompete agreements. Whereas the FTC under former Chair Lina Khan had sought to impose a sweeping ban on the agreements, later frozen by lawsuits, the regulator now plans for “case-by-case enforcement and public advocacy” while noting particular concerns of abuse in healthcare markets. On Friday, the FTC commissioners voted 3-1 to pull out of the a pending appeal for the stalled rule.
"In place of a rule to protect nearly all American workers from abusive noncompetes, the majority offers a oneoff settlement and a request for information (as though the record of tens of thousands of comments does not exist)," Slaughter wrote in her dissent of that vote. "Perhaps the agency is hoping that, by dismissing the Commission’s appeals and refusing to continue defending the rule in court, no one will notice that the FTC is choosing the side of controlling bosses over American workers."
The FTC is also probing claims of “deceptive marketing” from healthcare providers offering gender-affirming care services to minors, part of a multiagency campaign against such services launched by the administration.