How Roberts built a majority to broaden presidential removal power
The article examines Chief Justice John Roberts’s long campaign to increase presidential authority over federal agencies. It explains how the court’s decision in Trump v. Slaughter let the president remove leaders of nearly all independent agencies, overturning the framework of Humphrey’s Executor. It also describes how Roberts assembled the majority on a divided court.
Roberts’s interest dates to 1983, when as a Reagan administration lawyer he urged the White House counsel to revisit what he called the constitutional oddity of independent agencies. This summer, his majority in Trump v. Slaughter allowed unilateral presidential removal of leaders at nearly all such agencies.
The ruling displaced Humphrey’s Executor (1935), which had shielded an FTC commissioner from removal unless Congress’s specified grounds were met. That precedent separated officials with wholly executive duties from those exercising quasi-judicial or quasi-legislative functions, a distinction later used in Morrison v. Olson (1988).
The decision could reshape how federal agencies operate, affecting employees, regulated industries, and people who rely on agency decisions. With agency heads more directly answerable to the president, leadership may change more often, and long-term regulatory priorities may shift. It may also alter expectations about congressional limits and public confidence in independent decision-making, though practical effects will depend on how future administrations use the authority.