CONSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATIONS

In Trump v. Slaughter, U.S. Sup. Ct. docket number 25-332, President Trump is asking the Supreme Court to grant him the authority to fire, without cause, members of the multi-member Federal Trade Commission (the “FTC”). If granted, that authority, combined with his unquestioned authority to appoint FTC members with Senate approval, would give the President nearly absolute power to regulate trade and commerce in the United States, all via the simple procedure of threatening job termination for FTC Commissioners who do not comply with his directions. Congress established the FTC in the 1930’s to operate as an independent governmental agency to regulate trade and commerce according to fair business and competition standards, of either Congress’s, or the agency’s own, making. To assure that independence, Congress has prohibited the President from firing FTC members without cause before their individual, and staggered seven year terms-of-office end. See the Federal Trade Commission Act, 15 U.S.C. §§41-58.

The federal Constitution vests the federal government’s “executive Power” to the President of the United States, without defining what that “executive Power” consists of.[1]  However, other clauses of the Constitution vest the government’s limited “legislative Powers,” and its “judicial Power” to the Congress, and to the federal courts, respectively.[2]  In that context, the President’s “executive Power” can only consist of those powers of “carrying [the laws made by Congress] into practical effect.”[3] The three “Power Clauses” of the United States Constitution basically prohibit the divesting of Constitutionally assigned “Powers” from any branch of the federal government.

The Power Clauses, by definition, do not divest the President of any Power they assign to other branches, such as the Congress which has the legislative Power of the government, or the federal courts, which have the “judicial” Power of the government. Congress has given the FTC limited power both to make laws, in the form of rules and regulations governing certain business practices, and to administer justice by deciding cases, one way or another, brought against businesses accused of unfair competition. The President can still exercise his “executive” power to launch lawsuits or appeals in federal court to stop unfair competition or other illegal business practices.

The President ought to lose this case.

[1] U.S. Const., Art. II, §1: “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.”                                                                                                                                                                      

[2] U.S. Const., Art. I, §1 and U.S. Const., Art. III, §1.

[3] “Executive, Adj., Sense 3.a.” Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford UP, December 2025, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/1191785976 [bracketed explanation added].