SCOTUS appears ready to give Trump greater firing powers, over sharp liberal warnings - Chris Geidner

[In It to Win It]

https://www.lawdork.com/p/scotus-ftc-slaughter-humphreys-executor

The outcome of Monday’s oral arguments at the U.S. Supreme Court has been fairly clear since the summer: Humphrey’s Executor, a unanimous 1935 decision upholding Congress’s power to restrict the president’s ability to fire independent agency heads, is going to be overturned.

Justice Elena Kagan put the matter bluntly toward the end of Solicitor General John Sauer’s argument for the Trump administration, telling him that “the real-world reality” of his argument to overturn the precedent — given all of the laws passed since 1935 under the belief that such firings could be limited — would be “a President with control over everything, including over much of the law-making that happens in this country.“

It is, as described at Law Dork recently, that big of a deal.

Nothing that happened on Monday changed the almost certain precedent-destroying, government-changing outcome, telegraphed over the past months in a series of shadow docket rulings that allowed President Donald Trump’s firings of members of several multi-member independent agencies to take effect during litigation.

Monday at SCOTUS went as the Republican appointees have been telegraphing: Humphrey’s Executor is all but certainly done for, giving Trump increased firing powers.

What was a bit surprising was how aggressively and directly the Democratic appointees fought back.

— Chris Geidner (@chrisgeidner.bsky.social) 2025-12-09T14:23:17.776Z

[Blues Heron]

1. The coup rolls on