The federal government’s independent agencies have been designed by Congress to work on behalf of the public good—promoting the health, safety, and prosperity of all Americans and their communities. Housed in the executive branch, independent agencies, such as the Federal Communications Commission and the Consumer Product Safety Commission, are staffed nearly exclusively by nonpartisan experts who help safeguard consumers from unsafe products, protect workers’ rights, enhance highway safety, and stop big banks from scamming people, among other purposes. The leaders of those agencies are generally selected by the president and the leaders of the minority party to ensure they are bipartisan, and these commissioners jointly consider agency actions. Once installed, commissioners are supposed to be insulated from day-to-day political influence, unlike appointees who run executive departments directly under the president’s control, such as the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
Beginning with Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, the Supreme Court for 90 years has upheld congressional requirements that a president can fire independent agency commissioners only for a serious reason, such as malfeasance or neglect of duties. Yet Humphrey’s Executor and cases that reinforced its ruling are now under attack by President Donald Trump’s administration, which flouted the law and summarily fired commissioners at multiple independent agencies without any legally required cause. The president’s actions place Americans at considerable risk. This article discusses the chief elements of Humphrey’s Executor, as well as important related cases that have followed it, while also providing examples of how independent agencies are vital for the well-being of the American people.
Independent agencies help Americans
At their root, independent agencies are tasked with looking out for the well-being of all Americans, helping to enhance their safety, health, and prosperity.
As the Center for American Progress has discussed in prior reports, independent agencies derive their powers from statutes passed by Congress, a co-equal branch of government to the executive branch. Congress creates independent agencies to do the highly complex and technical work that lawmakers do not have the expertise or time to perform, often including devising intricate rules, investigating complaints, and penalizing lawbreakers. Independent agencies are typically managed by multiperson commissions, whose members are from both major political parties and are appointed by presidents and confirmed by Congress for lengthy terms at staggered intervals. Due to the often-technical nature of their responsibilities, independent agencies are given a large degree of autonomy to advance the public interest. Agency decisions are subject to review by the courts.
If a president could fire commissioners from both parties without cause and install only political loyalists to do their bidding, Americans would face real harms to their safety and prosperity.
Importantly, independent agencies are largely staffed by nonpartisan civil servants such as scientists, doctors, engineers, safety inspectors, economists, and others who must carry out their technical work without political interference and can help guard against corruption. If a president could fire commissioners from both parties without cause and install only political loyalists to do their bidding, Americans would face real harms to their safety and prosperity. Some examples of these harms include:
- The Consumer Product Safety Commission could face pressure from corporate CEOs to hide dangerous safety hazards associated with products such as lawnmowers or children’s toys.
- The Securities and Exchange Commission could weaken rules to hold Wall Street banks and large corporations accountable, imperiling everyday Americans’ 401(k) plans and investments, exposing them to fraud while risking stock market collapse.
- The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) could be blocked from passing pro-consumer rules, such as prohibiting workers from being subjected to noncompete agreements.
- The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) could be pressured to stop enforcing worker protections, especially at big corporations run by a president’s friends or wealthy donors.
- The National Transportation Safety Board could be impeded from investigating corporations that cause accidents on highways and railroads, as well as in the air and at sea.
- The Federal Communications Commission could favor or disfavor broadcasters depending on how their news programs discuss a president, such as by revoking broadcast licenses, which could lead reporters to weaken their coverage or stop exposing government corruption.
- The Federal Reserve, which is the nation’s central bank, could be forced to make crucial decisions based on short-term political pressures instead of the long-term economic prosperity of American families.
In short, dangerous and potentially corrupt consequences could result if a president further centralizes executive power and dictates the work of independent agency commissioners or nonpartisan experts—who could be forced to prioritize partisan loyalty over the law and public interest, which they swear to uphold. In fact, if Congress had ever contemplated that a president could hijack the responsibilities and powers of independent agencies, Congress may not have given the array of powers to independent agencies that it has.
The case law
Independent agencies exist today, in large part, thanks to the Supreme Court’s foundational opinion in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States in 1935. In that case, President Franklin Roosevelt tried to fire FTC Commissioner William Humphrey because Roosevelt worried that Humphrey would block his policies. The FTC Act, however, only allowed commissioners to be fired for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or wrongdoing while in office (i.e., “for cause”). Congress felt that FTC commissioners needed to be insulated from politics in order to serve the American people. If commissioners were replaced after every presidential election, that would lead to a constant policy back and forth that would ultimately harm American consumers and undermine the agency’s mission.
The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the president does not have unlimited power to fire independent agency heads. According to the court, Congress’ power to insulate independent agency heads from removal “cannot be doubted.” When agency heads perform “quasi-legislative” or “quasi-judicial” functions (i.e., policymaking or adjudicating), they are not exercising pure executive power, and thus the president does not have or need the ability to remove them at will. This case solidified independent agencies’ ability to serve the American people without fear of political reprisal.
In 1958, the Supreme Court reinforced Humphrey’s Executor in Wiener v. United States. In another unanimous opinion, the court held that the president does not have unlimited removal powers: “no such power is given the President directly by the Constitution, and none is impliedly conferred upon him by statute.” The court again evaluated removal protections in Morrison v. Olson in 1988. In Morrison, the court approved the extension of removal protections from independent agency heads to lower executive branch officers without policymaking abilities. In a 7-1 opinion, the court held that the for-cause restriction did not violate the separation of powers because it did not “unduly trammel on executive authority.”
Seila Law adopted a more expansive vision of presidential power than Humphrey’s Executor and marked a troubling shift in the law for the millions of Americans who rely on independent agencies.
Then, in 2020, the conservative-dominated Supreme Court indicated that there may be a small exception to Humphrey’s Executor. In Seila Law v. CFPB, the court narrowed Humphrey’s Executor by finding unconstitutional the for-cause removal protections for the Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, who manages the agency alone without fellow commissioners. In a 5-4 decision, the court held that removal protections for agency heads can only apply in two situations: 1) agencies with multimember commissioners and 2) agencies that do not wield substantial executive power. Seila Law adopted a more expansive vision of presidential power than Humphrey’s Executor and marked a troubling shift in the law for the millions of Americans who rely on independent agencies.
Attacks on Humphrey’s Executor
Over the past month, President Trump has fired several leaders of independent agencies without cause, part of his ongoing efforts to increase his presidential power consistent with the unitary executive theory—a radical theory of government that vests the president with total control of the federal bureaucracy in defiance of traditional separation of powers. In a striking reversal of the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) long-standing position under both Republican and Democratic administrations, the Trump DOJ stated on February 12, 2025, that it would no longer defend for-cause removal restrictions and would instead urge the Supreme Court to overturn Humphrey’s Executor, claiming that the president must be given more power to supervise principal executive branch officers such as commissioners. Six days later, the president issued a related executive order further weakening independent agencies by placing them directly under the thumb of the Office of Management and Budget—helmed by Russell Vought, a co-author of the far-right Project 2025, which argued for the overturning of Humphrey’s Executor.
Amid these unprecedented attacks on independent agencies, two federal judges agreed to hear lawsuits that will likely lead to the Supreme Court again considering the breadth of Humphrey’s Executor. Wilcox v. Trump concerns the president’s unlawful firing of NLRB Board Member Gwen Wilcox, and Dellinger v. Bessent concerns the unlawful firing of the head of the Office of Special Counsel, Hampton Dellinger. Like the FTC commissioner in Humphrey’s Executor, Wilcox and Dellinger enjoyed statutory for-cause protections but were fired without cause. The Trump administration quickly submitted an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court in Dellinger, requesting a pause of the district court’s order to reinstate Dellinger as special counsel.
Conclusion
Humphrey’s Executor and the Supreme Court cases that follow from it provide the foundational backbone for the U.S. government’s independent agencies to carry out their mission to protect everyday Americans and communities across the nation without undue political influence. This settled case law is now being attacked by a president attempting to amass as much executive power as possible under the unitary executive theory at the expense of the American people and the nation’s system of checks and balances. All eyes will be on the Supreme Court to see if it follows reason and the law or gives in to the political demands of the administration by weakening or overturning Humphrey’s Executor.