US supreme court allows Trump to remove Democrat from FTC post for now

The US supreme court allowed Donald Trump on Monday to keep a Democratic member of the Federal Trade Commission away from her post for now, temporarily pausing a judicial order that required the reinstatement of the commissioner who the Republican president has sought to oust.

The court’s action, known as an administrative stay, gives the justices additional time to consider Trump’s formal request to let him fire Rebecca Slaughter from the consumer protection agency that enforces antitrust law prior to her term expiring.

The stay was issued by John Roberts, the chief justice who handles emergency filings arising in Washington DC.

The Trump administration had asked the US supreme court on Thursday to let him temporarily remove Slaughter as the legal fight over the Republican president’s dismissal of her plays out.

The request came after US district judge Loren AliKhan blocked Trump’s firing of Slaughter. AliKhan ruled in July that Trump’s attempt to remove Slaughter did not comply with removal protections in federal law. Congress put such tenure protections in place to give certain regulatory agencies a degree of independence from presidential control.

The US court of appeals for the District of Columbia circuit on 2 September in a 2-1 decision upheld the judge’s ruling, prompting the administration’s request to the supreme court.

The lower courts ruled that the statutory protections shielding FTC members from being removed without cause conform with the US constitution in light of a 1935 supreme court precedent in a case called Humphrey’s Executor v United States.

In that case, the court ruled that a president lacks unfettered power to remove FTC commissioners, faulting then president Franklin Roosevelt’s firing of an FTC commissioner for policy differences.

The administration in its supreme court filing argued that “the modern FTC exercises far more substantial powers than the 1935 FTC,” and thus its members can be fired at will by the president.

The court in a similar ruling in May said the constitution gives the president wide latitude to fire government officials who wield executive power on his behalf.

The administration has repeatedly asked the justices this year to allow implementation of Trump policies impeded by lower courts. The supreme court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, has sided with the administration in almost every case that it has been called upon to review since Trump returned to the presidency in January.