Supreme Court overrules Humphrey’s Executor in a major win for constitutional accountability: CEI analysis

Today, in a 6–3 decision, the Supreme Court held that statutory restrictions on the President’s authority to remove Federal Trade Commission commissioners violate separation-of-powers principles, overruling Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, 295 U.S. 602 (1935), and restoring executive accountability over officers who exercise executive power. CEI experts weigh in with their take on the decision. 

CEI President Kent Lassman:

“The great genius of the Constitution is the separation of powers. Its greatest virtue is the ability to fix the errors of a previous era. Independent regulatory agencies are anathema to Constitutional design and democratic accountability. Today’s ruling reverses Humphrey’s and continues the healing process as we dismantle an unchecked regulatory state. In part, the Court relies on Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, a 2010 case in which CEI attorneys served as co-counsel, to extend the logic that the President must be able to ‘remov[e] those for whom he can not continue to be responsible.’ Free Enter. Fund v. Pub. Co. Accounting Oversight Bd., 561 U.S. 477, 496 (2010).”

CEI Vice President for Strategy and Senior Fellow Iain Murray:

“The Court today underscored what the Founders said 250 years ago – that the President must be responsible for all executive actions. What this decision also does is throw the responsibility for oversight of the President’s actions back to Congress. Congress cannot evade accountability simply by assigning executive power to officials insulated from presidential supervision. That ship has not so much sailed as sunk. If anything, Congress needs to do a detailed reexamination of all the laws it has delegated to independent commissions. That would be a great start to cutting red tape and getting bureaucrats out of people’s lives.”

CEI General Counsel Ondray Harris:

“The Founders did not trust liberty to good intentions alone. They protected it through constitutional structure. By separating legislative, executive, and judicial power, they made accountability—not bureaucratic independence—the safeguard against arbitrary government.

“Today’s decision in Trump v. Slaughter, 606 U.S. ___ (2026), vindicates that design. For too long, independent regulatory agencies have exercised executive power while claiming insulation from the President, the one officer elected by the whole nation and constitutionally charged with taking care that the laws be faithfully executed. That arrangement weakens democratic accountability and leaves citizens subject to regulatory power that is difficult to supervise, correct, or restrain.

“By rejecting the Federal Trade Commission’s removal protections and overruling Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, 295 U.S. 602 (1935), the Court reaffirmed a central constitutional principle: officials who execute federal law must remain accountable within the executive branch.

“CEI has long defended that principle. The Court’s decision builds in part on Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, 561 U.S. 477 (2010), a landmark separation-of-powers case in which CEI attorneys Sam Kazman and Hans Bader served as co-counsel. There, the Court held that the President must be able to remove officers “for whom he can not continue to be responsible.” Free Enter. Fund, 561 U.S. at 496. Slaughter carries that logic forward and confirms that Congress may not place executive power beyond presidential supervision.

“This decision is important not because it aggrandizes the Presidency, but because it restores accountability. When federal officials regulate, investigate, prosecute, and punish, they must be answerable through the constitutional chain of command. That is not a technical rule. It is one of the Constitution’s essential protections for liberty.”

CEI Research Fellow Alex Reinauer:

“The overruling of Humphrey’s Executor is a necessary step in quelling the spiral of administrative despotism. Rather than the end of agency independence, this marks the beginning of restoring America’s founding principle: the separation of powers. There is no greater birthday present for our nation as she turns 250.”

CEI Senior Fellow Wayne Crews:

“With apologies to The Who, agencies just met the new boss – and this time, it’s not the same as the old boss.

“Overruling Humphrey’s Executor restores an important constitutional principle: those who exercise executive power are not protected from at-will removal and should ultimately be accountable to the president, who is in turn accountable to the voters. This high-profile FTC Commissioner removal case wasn’t about antitrust, consumer protection policy, or controversial non-compete agreements. It was about who controls officials exercising that kind of sweeping executive power.

“But no one should mistake this Supreme Court decision for the end of the administrative state. The constitutional defect of Humphrey’s Executor doctrine was agency independence without accountability. The remaining defect –  especially evident since COVID –  is power without meaningful limits.”