VICTORY: Supreme Court Just Dismantled Deep State’s Constitutional Shield

Today’s landmark decision marks a decisive turning point in the long fight to restore constitutional accountability to the federal government. For generations, unelected agency officials have wielded vast Executive power while shielded from meaningful presidential control – a structure that weakens self-government and blurs the Constitution’s separation of powers. The ruling strikes at the heart of that arrangement, reaffirming that those who exercise Executive authority must ultimately answer to the President and, through him, to the American people.

By a 6-3 vote, the Court held that the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) for-cause removal protection violates the separation of powers, reversing the lower courts and clearing the way for President Trump’s removal of Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter to stand. Chief Justice Roberts wrote for the Court, joined by Justices Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett, with Justice Thomas joining all but one section. Justice Gorsuch added a concurrence flagging the broader implications for agency power, while Justice Sotomayor dissented, joined by Justices Kagan and Jackson.

The Court adopted the very arguments the ACLJ urged in our amicus brief in Trump v. Slaughter – and the implications reach far beyond one commissioner.

Take action with the ACLJ. Sign the petition: Defeat Rogue Judges – Defend the Constitution.

What the ACLJ Argued

In our brief, we argued that the FTC of 1935 – the limited, advisory body that Humphrey’s Executor addressed – simply does not exist anymore. Congress has since handed the FTC sweeping rulemaking authority, investigative and subpoena power, and the ability to prosecute and penalize private parties directly. None of this is “quasi” anything. It is core Executive power, and under Article II, officers who wield it must answer to the President.

The Court embraced the same core argument that the ACLJ advanced. The opinion describes today’s FTC as exercising rulemaking power that carries the force of law, investigative and adjudicatory power enforced through agency penalties, and the authority to sue on behalf of the United States – concluding that these functions sit squarely within “the heartland of executive power.” Just as we argued, the Court recognized that Humphrey’s applied only to an agency that exercised no part of the Executive power, and that the modern FTC fails that test by its own terms.

We also argued that to the extent Humphrey’s protects anything beyond that narrow description, it should be overruled outright. The Court went there too – concluding that whatever remained of the 1935 decision could not survive the agency’s transformation and the decades of precedent that had already eroded its foundation.

What the Founders Actually Built – and Why It Matters

The Framers were not vague on this point. Alexander Hamilton argued in “Federalist No. 70” that “[e]nergy in the Executive is a leading character in the definition of good government” – and that energy requires unity. A President who cannot direct, discipline, or remove the officers exercising power in his name is not really in charge of the executive branch at all.

Humphrey’s Executor in 1935 cut against that design by blessing a new category of “independent” officers – commissioners who could exercise enormous governmental power while answering to no one whom voters could actually hold accountable. For 90 years, that decision served as the Deep State’s constitutional shelter. Unelected bureaucrats could write rules with the force of law, run prosecutions, levy fines, and shape entire industries – all while insulated from the President the American people had actually elected. Certain officials, like the Federal Reserve, are different, but agencies wielding “the heartland of executive power” are directed by the President.

Today, the Supreme Court pulled that shelter down.

This case was never just about the FTC. For decades, Washington’s sprawling administrative apparatus has operated on the premise that real power flows not from elected officials but from permanent agency staff who cannot be touched – commissioners, administrators, and rule-writers who outlast any President and answer to none. That is not the constitutional republic the Founders designed. It is an unelected fourth branch, and it has accumulated extraordinary power over every corner of American life: what businesses can advertise, what drugs doctors can prescribe, what financial products banks can offer, what speech platforms can host.

When a President cannot remove the officers exercising that power, democratic accountability becomes a fiction. Elections change the faces in the Oval Office, but not the people actually running the government. Today’s ruling begins to change that.

This is a landmark win for the Constitution’s separation of powers and for the arguments the ACLJ brought to the Court. We are proud to have played a part in restoring this fundamental check on unaccountable bureaucracy. Read our full amicus brief here, and the Court’s full opinion here.

Take action with the ACLJ. Sign the petition: Defeat Rogue Judges – Defend the Constitution.