Federal Trade Commission

Overview

The Federal Trade Commission wrote its own independence into constitutional law — then watched the Supreme Court erase it, ninety-one years later. On June 29, 2026, the Court ruled 6-3 in Trump v. Slaughter that the FTC’s for-cause removal protections are unconstitutional, holding that the president may remove FTC commissioners at will and expressly overruling Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, the 1935 decision that had made the agency the model of the independent agency (ABA Banking Journal). The irony is structural: Humphrey’s Executor was the FTC’s own case. After President Franklin Roosevelt moved to remove FTC commissioner William Humphrey — a conservative Republican appointed in 1931 to a seven-year term — over New Deal policy differences, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously on May 27, 1935 (295 U.S. 602) that the FTC Act’s removal standard of “inefficiency, malfeasance, or neglect of duty” shielded commissioners from at-will firing, because the agency was “neither political nor executive, but predominantly quasi-judicial and quasi-legislative” (EBSCO). The case that began with one FTC commissioner’s firing ended, nine decades later, with two more: Rebecca Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya, whom President Trump fired in March 2025 as “inconsistent with administration priorities” (ABA Banking Journal).

The agency and its powers

Congress created the FTC in 1914 through the Federal Trade Commission Act, and its design has barely changed: up to five commissioners serving seven-year terms, with no more than three from the same political party, nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate (Britannica). The work runs through three bureaus — Consumer Protection, Competition, and Economics (Britannica). The commission polices advertising and marketing claims, consumer credit practices, and antitrust violations; it can monitor industries, investigate companies, issue cease-and-desist orders, and file civil lawsuits — and it manages the National Do Not Call Registry (Britannica). It has no authority over political advertising, a boundary Britannica notes explicitly (Britannica).

Independence won, then lost

The road from 1935 to 2026 ran through Slaughter herself. In July 2019, the FTC imposed a record-breaking $5 billion penalty on Facebook for violating a 2012 privacy order — deceiving users about their ability to control personal information, in the scandal that surfaced through Cambridge Analytica — coupled with a 20-year compliance order (Federal Trade Commission). The vote was 3-2, with Commissioners Rohit Chopra and Rebecca Slaughter dissenting — meaning Slaughter was already on the commission, in the minority, seven years before she became the plaintiff who lost the independence fight (Federal Trade Commission).

Two enforcement fights defined the Khan-era FTC. In September 2023, the commission filed a landmark antitrust lawsuit against Amazon in the Western District of Washington — joined by 17 state attorneys general after a four-year investigation — alleging Amazon blocks marketplace sellers from offering lower prices elsewhere and forces them into its warehouses and delivery services, and asking the court to consider structural relief (Reuters). And in May 2024, a Democratic-controlled commission voted 3-2 to ban nearly all worker noncompete agreements, affecting roughly 30 million workers — only for Judge Ada Brown of the Northern District of Texas to strike the rule down that August, holding the FTC lacks authority to ban practices it deems unfair methods of competition through broad rules; the agency said it was “seriously considering a potential appeal” (Reuters).

Then came the firings. Trump removed Slaughter and Bedoya in March 2025 without citing statutory cause, invoking Article II instead (ABA Banking Journal). Judge Loren AliKhan of the District of the District of Columbia granted Slaughter summary judgment in July 2025 and restored her to office, citing Humphrey’s Executor; the D.C. Circuit denied the government’s request for a stay, but the U.S. Supreme Court stayed the injunction and took the case (ABA Banking Journal). Writing for the 6-3 majority, Chief Justice Roberts held that the FTC exercises core executive powers — enforcing dozens of statutes, issuing binding regulations, investigating businesses, filing civil actions — so Congress cannot shield its commissioners from presidential removal (ABA Banking Journal). Justice Gorsuch concurred but warned the ruling gives presidents greater control over agencies wielding broad legislative and judicial authority; Justice Sotomayor, joined by Justices Jackson and Kagan, dissented, arguing the Court had discarded nearly a century of precedent protecting independent, bipartisan agencies (ABA Banking Journal).

What this profile does not claim

It does not list the commission’s current members or party split, which may have shifted after the 2026 ruling and were not verified for this profile. It does not assert the outcome of any appeal in the noncompete case — the agency had only said it was considering one. It does not claim the 2026 ruling changed what the FTC is legally empowered to do: the ABA analysis stresses that the underlying statutory authority is unchanged — what changed is presidential control over the officials exercising it. And it does not treat the 1935 and 2026 decisions as symmetrical bookends in substance; one unanimously insulated the agency on the theory it was not executive, the other held 6-3 that it plainly is.