AI Consensus Solution

The FTC's for-cause removal restriction is constitutional as applied to officers exercising quasi-legislative and quasi-judicial powers; the President may remove FTC members only for cause.

Mode: Scotus Opinion Model: deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash Drafted: 2026.06.30
Supreme Court opinion

Trump v. Slaughter

John G. Roberts

Author
John G. Roberts
Filed
2026-06-29
Citation
—
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“AI Consensus” · Working Draft

The FTC's for-cause removal restriction is constitutional as applied to officers exercising quasi-legislative and quasi-judicial powers; the President may remove FTC members only for cause.

Does the Constitution permit Congress to restrict the President's removal of Federal Trade Commission members to 'for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office'?

Constitutional concerns with the original

  1. The majority opinion relies primarily on post-1789 practice (the 'Decision of 1789') and the structural inference from unitary executive theory, rather than on the original public meaning of Article II's text.
  2. The majority treats 'executive Power' (Art. II, §1, cl. 1) as necessarily encompassing an unlimited removal power, but the text does not mention removal at all — original meaning may distinguish between 'executing' the laws and the administrative personnel management of multi-member commissions exercising quasi-legislative and quasi-judicial functions.
  3. The majority ignores the fact that the FTC exercises powers that are not purely executive: it adjudicates disputes (judicial) and issues prospective rules (legislative). The Constitution vests 'legislative Powers' in Congress (Art. I, §1) and 'judicial Power' in courts (Art. III, §1). Congress may attach conditions to the appointment and tenure of officers who exercise those non-executive powers.
  4. The majority's reading of Humphrey's Executor as an exception that swallowed the rule is reversed: Humphrey's correct reading is that for-cause removal is permitted when the officer exercises 'quasi-legislative' or 'quasi-judicial' duties — a view grounded in the nondelégation doctrine and the idea that Congress may create independent agencies as 'arms of Congress' to carry out legislative policy without direct presidential control.

Solution text

1) The question: Does the Constitution prohibit Congress from requiring the President to have cause before removing a Federal Trade Commissioner? 2) Relevant constitutional text: Article II, Section 1, Clause 1 vests 'the executive Power' in the President. Article II, Section 3 commands the President to 'take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.' Article I, Section 1 vests 'all legislative Powers herein granted' in Congress. Article III, Section 1 vests 'the judicial Power' in courts. The Constitution says nothing about removal of officers, except for impeachment (Art. II, §4). 3) Ratification-era understanding: The Decision of 1789 was about Secretaries of Departments — officers whose function was exclusively to assist the President in executing the laws. Those are 'executive officers' within the meaning of Article II. The Framers understood that Congress, under the Necessary and Proper Clause (Art. I, §8, cl. 18), could 'confer powers' on officers that are not purely executive. When an officer exercises legislative or judicial power delegated by Congress, the President's removal power is not absolute because the President has no constitutional authority over those powers. Federalist No. 47 (Madison) explains that the accumulation of all powers in the same hands is 'the very definition of tyranny.' The separation of powers requires independence of the legislative and judicial branches from executive control. 4) The holding: The for-cause removal provision of 15 U.S.C. §41 is constitutional. The FTC performs a mix of executive, legislative, and judicial functions. To the extent it adjudicates (judicial power) or promulgates rules of general applicability (legislative power), those officers are not within the President's executive removal power. Congress may insulate them from at-will removal to prevent executive encroachment on the legislative and judicial powers reserved to Congress and the courts. However, to the extent an FTC function is purely executive (e.g., prosecutorial enforcement decisions in court), the President may remove for cause, but 'cause' includes disagreement with the President's enforcement priorities, consistent with the Take Care Clause. The statute's definition of 'cause' is not unconstitutionally narrow; 'inefficiency' and 'neglect of duty' provide ample room. 5) What changes downstream: The President cannot remove FTC members at will. The removals of Commissioners Slaughter and Bedoya are void. They are restored to office. The FTC retains its for-cause removal protection. Congress may, going forward, remove the adjudicatory and rulemaking functions of the FTC to separate Article III courts or Article I legislative agencies, but while they remain in the FTC, they are constitutionally protected. The decision in Humphrey's Executor is reaffirmed; the decisions in Myers and Seila Law are limited to purely executive officers.

Operative provisions

remedy
The two removed FTC Commissioners are restored to their positions with back pay from the date of removal, plus reasonable attorney's fees. The President is enjoined from removing FTC members except for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office as defined by the Federal Trade Commission Act.
stare decisis treatment
Humphrey's Executor v. United States (1935) is reaffirmed in full. Myers v. United States (1926) is distinguished as applying only to officers performing purely executive functions. Seila Law LLC v. CFPB (2020) is overruled insofar as it held that for-cause removal is unconstitutional for single-director independent agencies exercising substantial executive power — such agencies are now subject to a functional test: if the agency's core functions are quasi-legislative or quasi-judicial, for-cause removal is permitted.
scope of holding
This holding applies to all multi-member independent regulatory commissions whose statutory mandate includes rulemaking and adjudication. It does not apply to the heads of purely executive departments (e.g., Secretaries of State, Defense). It does not apply to the Director of the Office of Management and Budget or other officers whose sole function is to advise the President or execute the President's policies.

Bipartisan rationale

This holding honors Democratic priorities by preserving independent regulatory agencies as originally designed — a core Progressive and New Deal institutional architecture that Congress enacted to protect consumer protection, antitrust enforcement, and economic regulation from transient political control. It honors Republican (originalist / textualist) priorities by demanding a careful separation-of-powers analysis rooted in the original meaning of Article I, Article II, and Article III, rather than 20th-century functional balancing. It rejects the unitary executive theory as inconsistent with the original understanding that Congress may vest non-executive power in officers who are not subject to presidential control. Both parties' constitutional traditions — Democratic institutionalist and Republican originalist — converge on the conclusion that the Constitution's text does not require at-will presidential removal of officers exercising legislative and judicial power.

Constitutional citations

  • → Article II, Section 1, Clause 1
  • → Article II, Section 3
  • → Article I, Section 1
  • → Article III, Section 1
  • → Article I, Section 8, Clause 18 (Necessary and Proper Clause)
  • → Tenth Amendment
  • → Federalist No. 47 (Madison)
  • → Federalist No. 48 (Madison)
  • → Federalist No. 78 (Hamilton)

Vote-count path

N/A — judicial holding.

Drafted by the OpenOS AI legislature · deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash · 2026.06.30 06:02 UTC · ← Back to the Republic