Supreme Court ruling that ‘walloped’ independent regulators sparks fear for consumers

A Supreme Court ruling giving President Trump broad authority to fire the heads of independent commissions will solidify the president’s grasp on a number of entities that impact Americans’ daily lives.

The high court last week sided with Trump in determining he had the power to fire Federal Trade Commission member Rebecca Slaughter.

It’s a decision that will have ramifications for a number of commissions and boards that do everything from reviewing product safety to major mergers, ensuring fair hiring practices and even regulating nuclear materials. 

“I think that’s the perfectly named decision,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, of the Slaughter ruling.

“We have regulatory agencies and commissions that have been established on a bipartisan or nonpartisan principle, and the Supreme Court just smashed it, and that’s all in service of Donald Trump’s unitary executive theory that the president’s in charge of everything. So that’s a massive assault on all the progress we’ve been able to make through regulatory agencies and commissions.”

Trump fired members of a number of regulatory boards and commissions shortly after he took office, including Slaughter and Jocelyn Samuels, a member of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission initially appointed by Trump. The president also fired others with oversight roles, including Hampton Dellinger, the former head of the Office of Special Counsel, and 17 inspectors general. The suits have been largely unsuccessful.

In analyzing Slaughter’s case, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that the framers meant to “vest ‘[t]he executive Power’ in one person,” leaving the court to “confront one of several regulatory agencies that deviate from this model of Presidential supervision.”

The ruling is already having a direct impact on others booted by the president. Samuels on Monday dropped her own legal pursuit to stay in her job in the wake of the decision.

“There’s a reason why they’re called independent, and it is because you don’t want them making decisions based upon partisan politics; you want them making decisions to effectuate the statutory goals and mandates, and they’ve got to be able to do that free from any sort of presidential influence. And so what you have now after Slaughter is a situation where the president can fire these decisionmakers at his whim, and it kind of upends the whole purpose of the statute,” said Jennifer Abruzzo, who was........

© The Hill