Right is still right, even if you stand by yourself.

This is Hans von Pekowski, and this is Case in Point.

The title of our episode today is Slaughtering Humphreys Executive.

And it's all about who controls the executive branch of the federal

government. I can see my guest, Mark, Jenwith, laughing at the title I came up with for this

episode. Very good. I like it a lot. Who controls the executive branch? Is it the president

or is it commissioners of multi-member independent

agencies set up by Congress? We just had arguments on Monday, December 9th, and probably one of the

most important cases, really, that Supreme Court has heard in many decades called Trump be slaughter and the

cases about Rebecca Slaughter. Rebecca Slaughter was a commissioner on the Federal Trade Commission.

When Donald Trump came into office, he fired her. He also fired commissioners from other

of the so-called independent federal agencies like the National Labor Relations Board, the Merit Services Protection Board.

Rebecca Slaughter sued Donald Trump saying, you can't fire me.

And she was relying on a 1935 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court called Humphreys Executor.

And it's kind of ironic that Rebecca Slaughter is at the FTC because that case was about FDR trying to fire a commissioner put in by Herbert Hoover on the Federal Trade Commission. In this case,

Rebecca Slaughter was nominated by Joe Biden for a seven-year term, and under the statute that Congress

passed, and this is very similar to the statutes for many of these other agencies like the

Security Exchange Commission, President

can't fire one of these commissioners once they're in office except for certain reasons,

usually some kind of wrongdoing.

So depending on who's right about this case, either we're going to restore presidential authority over the

executive branch to supervise what happens there, or if you listen to the arguments being

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