The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) was created in 1914 and has always been led by five presidentially appointed commissioners who may be removed from office only for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office. The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of these removal conditions in 1935, ruling that a president’s attempted firing of an FTC commissioner was unlawful in the case Humphrey’s Executor v. United States.

In 2025, defying this precedent and the FTC’s governing statute, President Trump purported to fire FTC Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter without cause. President Trump asserted that the FTC’s statute is unconstitutional because it allows presidents to remove the agency’s commissioners only for good cause, not at will.

Commissioner Slaughter challenged her attempted firing in court, and in April 2025, CAC filed an amicus brief on behalf of roughly 250 members of Congress in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in support of her suit. In July 2025, the district court granted summary judgment for Slaughter, holding that her firing was unlawful and issuing an injunction barring interference with the performance of her duties.

The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to stay the district court’s injunction pending appeal, which the Supreme Court agreed to do, while also granting certiorari before judgment—thereby skipping over the court of appeals to directly review the district court’s decision.

In the Supreme Court, the Trump administration argues that Humphrey’s Executor should be overruled, and that permitting good-cause removal conditions for the leaders of agencies like the FTC violates the President’s constitutional authority. In November 2025, CAC filed an amicus brief explaining why the Trump administration is wrong.

Our brief shows that longstanding historical practice has settled the constitutionality of agencies like the FTC, even without taking into account the precedent of Humphrey’s Executor. Congresses and presidents have jointly created independent commissions like the FTC for more than half of the nation’s history. Because nothing in the Constitution clearly forbids this firmly entrenched practice, courts should not overrule the choices long made by the people’s elected representatives.

We first discuss how historical practice can resolve constitutional ambiguities. That principle was endorsed by James Madison and other Framers of the Constitution, and the Supreme Court has long agreed that established practice over time can settle the meaning of the Constitution’s uncertain terms and phrases. Especially in cases concerning the allocation of power between the two elected branches, the Court has always put significant weight upon historical practice.

Next, we explain that the scope of presidential removal authority was ambiguous at the Founding, and was settled only through the development of historical practice—a practice that eventually included the use of good-cause removal conditions for independent agencies like the FTC. When the Constitution was ratified, it was not widely understood to mandate exclusive presidential removal authority. Immediately after the Constitution’s ratification, Congress hotly debated whether presidents even had the inherent authority to remove executive branch officers without impeachment. As illustrated by this fierce debate, the nature of presidential removal authority cannot be resolved by the Constitution’s text alone or by the history that preceded its ratification.

Although the President’s removal power was not part of the Constitution’s original public meaning, it subsequently came to be accepted through a combination of congressional action and executive branch practice. As we explain, however, the presidential authority that emerged from this early tradition is fully compatible with conferring good-cause tenure on officers like the FTC commissioners.

Finally, our brief explains why long-established practice has placed the validity of independent agencies like the FTC beyond doubt. For most of the nation’s history, beginning nearly 150 years ago, Congress and presidents have been assigning regulatory authority to commissions whose leaders are removable only for good cause. The executive branch has not only acquiesced in this historical practice but has actively helped shape it: for more than a century, one president after another has helped create these agencies, modify them, fund them, and appoint their leaders.

In short, historical practice confirms that the President possesses no absolute removal power, and Commissioner Slaughter’s firing without good cause was unlawful.