For more than 40 years, since his service as a young lawyer in the Reagan administration, Chief Justice John Roberts has pushed for the election of an exceptionally powerful US president who could fire the heads of independent agencies at any time.
In one memo to a White House adviser in 1983, Roberts argued that “the time has come to reconsider the constitutional anomaly of independent agencies.”
When he was appointed chief justice in 2005, he began laying the groundwork for overturning Supreme Court precedent that allowed Congress to limit the powers of the president.
“Without such power,” Roberts wrote in the 2010 case, “the president could not bear full responsibility for the performance of his duties; the money would have stopped somewhere else.”
Roberts’ efforts culminated Monday when he led the majority to overturn the 1935 case, Executioner Humphrey v. United States, which allowed Congress to limit the president’s power to fire agency heads to ensure their independence. From his seat at the center of the dais, the chief justice observed that the court was steadily retreating from 1935 precedent, which he insisted was contrary to constitutional history and structure.
“If there’s anything left of Humphrey, we’ll cancel it,” he said.
The regulatory debate may seem dry compared to the Supreme Court battles centered on the Second Amendment, abortion and reproductive rights, religion and immigration. But the work of independent U.S. agencies, for better or worse, impacts American life by imposing public health and safety and consumer protection requirements on businesses and individuals to enhance the common good.
“Our Constitution creates three branches of government but only one president,” Roberts wrote, developing his position in his 36-page opinion. “This president is not omnipotent – not by any means. But he is not impotent either. He and he alone are vested with the ‘executive power’ of the United States.”
Roberts’ expansive approach to presidential power has played out on numerous occasions over the years, perhaps most notably in 2024, when the chief justice and his fellow conservatives granted Trump substantial immunity from prosecution, pointing to the president’s “final and exclusive” powers.
His long-term efforts to limit the independent agencies such as the Federal Trade Commission at the heart of Monday’s government are not unlike his successive moves to limit the 1965 Voting Rights Act. That effort culminated earlier this term when the court struck down federal protections for black and Latino voters.
Roberts’ strategic patience paid off. In both cases, he was helped by additional appointments of like-minded conservative judges who created a 6-3 supermajority.
And in the same spirit, the three liberal justices again could only dissent.
On Monday, Justice Sonia Sotomayor issued an oral dissent from left-leaning justices, emphasizing the importance of protecting independent regulators from pressure from a president who might want to undermine fair trade rules such as Federal Trade Commission oversight, as well as workplace safety, nuclear power and chemical hazards that regulators administer.
Sotomayor said Congress has long relied on the 1935 precedent to create a workable system of regulating government.
“The Court gives the President a power unknown even to the English Crown against which the Founders rebelled,” Sotomayor wrote, “elevating him above his once equal branches of government, transforming the duty of care for the faithful execution of the laws into a license to act contrary to those very laws.”
Congressional legislation establishing the Federal Trade Commission and other independent agencies dictates certain terms of office for commissioners and allows removal from office only for certain offenses, defined as “ineffectiveness, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in the performance of official duties.”
When Trump returned for his second term, he set out to remove Democratic appointees at several agencies, including Rebecca Slaughter, who was in the middle of a seven-year term on the Federal Trade Commission. The commission was created in 1914 to protect consumers and protect against unfair business practices.
In March 2025, Slaughter received an email from Trump saying that her “continued service at the Federal Trade Commission is not consistent with my administration’s priorities.”
Lower court judges sided with Slaughter when she sought her post, based on a 1935 precedent. When the Trump administration appealed, it borrowed language from Roberts’ past decisions and said it was time to reverse the nine-decade-old decision.
Trump officials, as well as Roberts and many of his fellow conservatives, subscribe to a “single executive theory” of presidential control that gives him authority over a vast bureaucracy.
On Monday, the justices made an exception for the Federal Reserve, which Roberts said in the separate case Trump v. Cook was based on the country’s long tradition as an independent central bank.
Slaughter, at a news conference after the trial, denounced the ruling against her and the Fed’s exclusion.
“Somehow Wall Street is special and gets special treatment, but otherwise the agencies that care about ordinary Americans don’t,” Slaughter said.
After oral arguments in her case last December and remarks from majority conservatives, victory for the Trump administration seemed inevitable. And given Roberts’ track record of transforming this area of law, it looks like he’ll write the opinion himself.
Supreme Court rules states can count mail ballots received after Election Day
Supreme Court rules states can count mail ballots received after Election Day
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In the courtroom Monday, Roberts began by explaining that James Madison pioneered among America’s founders the concept of all executive power vested in the president to appoint and enforce the laws of the land.
The Chief Justice called Hangman Humphrey an exception. The case began when President Franklin D. Roosevelt tried to fire an appointee of his predecessor, President Herbert Hoover, from the Federal Trade Commission. The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the president has no power unless authorized by Congress.
The decision undermined an earlier 1926 ruling, Myers v. United States, which allowed the president to remove postmasters from office without congressional consent.
While Roberts worked in government, first under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush and then as a lawyer, he advanced a sound concept of executive power. He sought to return to what he called the “fundamental rule” of Myers.
On Monday, he outlined his previous decisions in 2010 and 2020 that lifted congressional limits on removing a president from office and were based on the 1926 Myers case.
Speaking Monday, he noted that the Myers decision was written by Chief Justice William Howard Taft, who was previously president of the United States. Taft believed, Roberts said, that giving the president executive power was essentially a grant of authority to execute laws, which included the ability to remove officials over whom he had no responsibility or control.
While Roberts exaggerated the 1926 decision, Sotomayor downplayed it.
“If Myers is the ‘best’ support for the majority’s position, then his theory is a castle built on sand. First, as the majority concedes, Myers did not invoke the defense of removal for cause; instead, the challenged statute required the Senate’s consent to removal.”
Her sharpest comments came when she ridiculed Roberts’ arguments about presidential responsibility.
Sotomayor, who has frequently criticized President Trump, suggested that instead of “accountability,” the decision would lead to “instability.”
“I’m going to guess,” she said, looking up from her page at the courtroom audience, “…maybe you should too.”
Sotomayor concluded: “The President has more power than ever before.”
Roberts, reserved as ever, seemed unperturbed: “More power for the president—that was his goal.”