03/31/2025
Whether a President should do something or whether a President can do something are often two different things, just like for the rest of us. "Should" is subjective, "Can" is less controversial.
Here's a discussion from Ballotopedia of the "can" for recent Presidential firings. "Should," as always, is up to you:
"On March 18, President Donald Trump (R) fired Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Commissioners Alvaro Bedoya (D) and Rebecca Kelly Slaughter (D). According to The New York Times' David McCabe and Cecilia Kang, at least one of the letters notifying the commissioners of their termination stated, "Your continued service on the F.T.C. is inconsistent with my administration's priorities."
In response to their terminations, Bedoya and Slaughter filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, stating that the "Plaintiffs will not and do not accept this unlawful action: Plaintiffs bring this action to vindicate their right to serve the remainder of their respective terms, defend the integrity of the Commission, and to continue their work for the American people."
FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson (R) said that Trump "is the head of the executive branch and is vested with all of the executive power of our government. I have no doubts about his constitutional authority to remove commissioners, which is necessary to ensure democratic accountability for our government."
The firings came one month after Trump signed Executive Order 14215, which expanded presidential oversight over federal agencies. However, a president's appointment and removal power have been the topic of previous U.S. Supreme Court cases.
Whether a president has the legal power to fire FTC commissioners was central to the 1935 U.S. Supreme Court case Humphrey's Executor v. United States. President Franklin D. Roosevelt (D) fired FTC Commissioner William E. Humphrey. After Humphrey died, his estate challenged the legality of the firing in court. The court ruled Roosevelt had acted improperly and the president could only remove FTC members for "inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office," the only causes for dismissal explicitly given in the statute establishing the FTC.
The ruling set a precedent that the presidents could not remove officers from independent federal agencies for reasons other than those listed in the relevant statutes. The court noted that administrative agencies were meant to be independent and nonpartisan, so the President generally could not remove such officers for purely political reasons.
On whether the Trump administration would seek to overturn Humphrey's Executor, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said, "The goal was to let these individuals go. If we have to fight it all the way to the Supreme Court, we certainly will."
In the 2020 case of Seila Law v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the U.S. Supreme Court held that a statutory prohibition against at-will presidential firing of the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) was an unconstitutional violation of the separation of powers principle. In the 2021 case of Collins v. Yellen, the court likewise ruled against similar statutory restrictions on the president's removal authority of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) director.
While these cases have expanded presidential removal authority, they did not strike down the ruling in Humphrey's Executor.
Congress established the FTC in 1914 with a statutory mandate to "prevent unfair methods of competition in commerce." The FTC is one of 132 agencies in the Office of Personnel Management's (OPM) list of independent agencies, a term used to describe an executive agency that operates with some degree of autonomy from the executive branch. The FTC has operated with a certain degree of autonomy within the executive branch.
The president, with the advice of the U.S. Senate, appoints all members of the commission. According to the statute, "not more than three of the Commissioners shall be members of the same political party." Two Republicans currently serve on the five-seat FTC board, and a third Republican, Mark Meador, is awaiting Senate confirmation.
The FTC is generally able to bring or dismiss cases with two commissioners. In at least one pending case, the two Republican members, Melissa Holyoak and Ferguson, have previously recused themselves. Reuters' Jody Godoy wrote, "The recusals raise uncertainty about how the FTC will manage the case going forward."
Trump has previously sought in this term to fire members of other independent executive agencies: National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Member Gwynne Wilcox, Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) Member Cathy Harris, and Federal Election Commission (FEC) Chair Ellen Weintraub. All three of these officials have argued that their firings were illegal, with lower court federal judges ruling in favor of at least Wilcox and Harris in lawsuits brought by them. The Trump Administration appealed these decisions.
Trump has also fired the heads of independent agencies run by a single person rather than a multi-member board. For example, Trump removed Hampton Dellinger as the head of the Office of Special Counsel. Dellinger sued and was granted a preliminary injunction. An appeals court removed the injunction on March 5, and Dellinger dropped his lawsuit on March 6."
