The Supreme Court handed President Donald Trump sweeping new power over consumer protection agencies yesterday, upholding his March 2025 firing of a Democratic Federal Trade Commission member and overturning a 91-year-old precedent that shielded independent regulators from political interference. The decision removes congressional limits on a president's ability to fire FTC commissioners, fundamentally reshaping how more than a dozen agencies meant to protect consumers from corporate abuse will operate.
The ruling doesn't just affect the FTC. It clears the path for Trump's May 2025 firing of three Democratic commissioners at the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission to stand, according to consumer advocates who warn that agencies designed to police fraud and dangerous products will now answer directly to the White House rather than operating as independent watchdogs.
Consumer Protections at Risk
"Today's decision risks turning independent consumer protection agencies into political pawns," said Emily Peterson-Cassin, director of competition and market fairness at the Consumer Federation of America. "When the experts charged with policing fraud, protecting competition, and standing up to powerful corporations can be removed at will, consumers lose an important safeguard against abuse."
The FTC enforces antitrust and consumer protection laws affecting virtually every area of commerce. Its independence was meant to ensure that enforcement decisions were based on law and evidence, not political pressure. That firewall has now been removed.
Courtney Griffin, director of consumer product safety at CFA, confirmed that the CPSC firings "will stand because this FTC firing has stood." She added: "Today's decision does more than undermine one agency. It completely reshapes our government, and that includes the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the watchdog that guards against dangerous products that injure and kill."
From Independence to Presidential Control
Trump asked the court to overturn Humphrey's Executor v. United States, a 1935 decision upholding removal restrictions for leaders of multimember administrative agencies. The court has been chipping away at that precedent since 2010, but yesterday's ruling represents the most dramatic shift yet in consolidating executive power over regulatory bodies.
After taking office again in 2025, Trump declared all federal agencies were under his control. In March 2025, he fired two Democratic members of the five-member FTC board: Rebecca Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya. Bedoya initially joined Slaughter's legal challenge but eventually withdrew.
In a blistering statement released June 29, Bedoya called the Supreme Court "a billionaire's fan club," which is allowing corporations to hurt people and deny them their day in court. "The only people who will win from this ruling are the President's billionaire golfing buddies. And at the Supreme Court, this is par for the course," he said.
Political Control Over Enforcement
Alexandra Reeve Givens, president and CEO of the Center for Democracy & Technology, said Trump's "administration has made no effort to hide its desire to use the levers of government authority to strongarm and intimidate political enemies. The Supreme Court has taken down one of the key barriers stopping them."
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on May 9 that Trump could fire any staffers who were part of the executive branch. "He has the right to fire people within the executive branch," Leavitt said. "It's a pretty simple answer."
Right-leaning groups celebrated the decision. Margot Cleveland, of counsel at the NCLA, said "the Supreme Court's decision today in Slaughter represents a huge victory for our constitutional republic. By expressly overturning Humphrey's Executor and returning to a faithful interpretation of separation of powers, the Court's decision in Slaughter ensures that federal agencies remain answerable to the Executive—and in turn the American people who elected the President."
Why This Matters:
Independent regulatory agencies were created to insulate consumer protection and market oversight from political interference, ensuring that decisions about product safety, corporate fraud, and anticompetitive behavior were made by experts applying the law, not by officials serving at the pleasure of whoever occupies the White House. This ruling concentrates unprecedented power over consumer protection in the executive branch at a moment when corporate consolidation and market power are already at historic highs. When commissioners can be fired for pursuing enforcement actions that displease a president or his political allies, the agencies meant to check corporate abuse become tools of political control. Consumers who rely on these watchdogs to recall dangerous products, investigate deceptive practices, and challenge monopolistic behavior now face regulators who must consider whether their work will cost them their jobs. The institutional independence that made these agencies effective advocates for public safety has been replaced with a structure that makes them answerable to political calculation.