Supreme Court

Gorsuch Warns About Executive Overreach While Expanding Trump's Power

The Supreme Court extended presidential control over federal agencies. What could go wrong?

Damon Root | 6.30.2026 7:00 AM

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In 1935, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously stopped President Franklin Roosevelt from firing a commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for purely political reasons. The FTC "cannot in any proper sense be characterized as an arm or an eye of the executive," the Court declared in Humphrey's Executor v. United States.

On Monday, by a vote of 6–3, the Supreme Court overturned Humphrey's Executor and allowed President Donald Trump to fire FTC commissioner Rebecca Slaughter at will. In other words, a theory of broad executive power that was once championed by a progressive president has just been successfully resurrected by a conservative one.

Why did the Supreme Court rule the way that it did?

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