When the Supreme Court decided Humphrey’s Executor v. United States in 1935, it was settling more than a personnel dispute. It was defining a constitutional compromise that would allow the modern federal government to function. The question at the time was whether President Franklin Roosevelt could fire a Federal Trade Commissioner who disagreed with him. The Court said no-not because the commissioner had a right to the job, but because Congress had deliberately designed certain agencies to operate with professional independence rather than political responsiveness.
The idea was simple: some parts of government work best when insulated from short-term pressure. The FTC, the Federal Reserve, the National Labor Relations Board, and similar agencies were created to provide continuity, expertise, and stability in areas-markets, labor, competition-that swing with political winds. Humphrey’s Executor gave constitutional approval to that design. Presidents could not remove commissioners at will; they had to show cause. For the next nine decades, that principle allowed independent agencies to survive changes in administration without being remade overnight.
During the Cold War, the model reached its peak. Independent agencies became central to managing the country’s economic and national-security posture. Their legitimacy rested on expertise and continuity rather than loyalty to any particular president. Congress, courts, international markets, and regulated industries all came to rely on this stability. The system was not flawless, but it was durable-and widely accepted as necessary for a complex national economy.
After 2017, however, the foundation began to shift. A new judicial philosophy gained dominance, one that viewed independent agencies not as stabilizing institutions but as constitutional anomalies. In this view, the President must control all officers who exercise executive power, and any statutory limits on firing such officials were suspect. The Supreme Court’s decision in Seila Law (2020)-striking down removal protections for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s director-signaled the beginning of a deliberate retreat from the logic of Humphrey’s Executor. The Court did not overrule the 1935 decision, but it carved away at the terrain beneath it.
As the Court’s composition changed, this shift accelerated. By 2024-2025, majorities were consistently skeptical of agency independence in any form. The Court dismantled Chevron deference, narrowed rulemaking authority, and endorsed broader presidential control over administrative structure. None of these decisions formally rejected Humphrey’s Executor, but together they created an environment in which its core reasoning looked increasingly isolated.
That brings us to the present moment, as the Court considers Trump v. Slaughter. The question is again whether the President may fire an FTC commissioner mid-term. But unlike in 1935, the Court now approaches the issue with ninety years of accumulated doctrine about executive power, agency structure, and administrative legitimacy. Most of that doctrine now points toward presidential control, not independence.
This does not guarantee that the Court will explicitly overrule Humphrey’s Executor. The modern Court often avoids sweeping declarations when narrower holdings can achieve similar results. But the underlying compromise the case embodied-the idea that Congress can create pockets of expert governance shielded from immediate political pressure-has already been eroded. What remains is the form of independence without the function.
If the Court rules for the President in Trump v. Slaughter, the effect will be to shift constitutional gravity decisively. Independent agencies may continue to exist on paper, but their leadership will become interchangeable with each change in administration. Stability will give way to turnover. Policy will swing more sharply with electoral cycles. And the idea that certain government functions require a measure of continuity-a principle that held through the Depression, World War II, and the Cold War-may no longer hold.
The constitutional rules will remain intact. The administrative state will still operate. But the 90-year compromise that balanced presidential authority with institutional continuity will have reached its terminal phase. The question now is not whether that compromise can be preserved, but what will replace it.