The Supreme Court Expands Presidential Power. Again.

What It Covers

The Supreme Court issued two landmark rulings on June 30, expanding presidential power to fire leaders of over two dozen independent federal agencies without cause — overturning a 1935 precedent — while simultaneously carving out a specific exception protecting Federal Reserve governors from at-will removal.

Key Questions Answered

• •Presidential Removal Power: Presidents can now fire commissioners of independent agencies — including the FTC, SEC, and Consumer Product Safety Commission — without stating any reason. This overturns a 90-year-old precedent established in 1935 and eliminates congressional job protections that shielded more than two dozen agency heads from political interference by whoever occupies the White House.
• •Federal Reserve Exception: The Federal Reserve retains its independence under a separate 5-4 ruling authored by Chief Justice Roberts, joined by all three liberal justices and Justice Kavanaugh. Trump's attempt to fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook via a social media post was ruled procedurally improper — the court requires a formal cause-based process specific to the Fed's unique monetary role.
• •Unitary Executive Theory in Practice: Chief Justice Roberts, who has championed unitary executive theory since his Reagan-era legal career, grounded the ruling in the argument that presidents cannot effectively govern if agency heads holding executive power are insulated from removal. This framework treats independent agency structures as constitutionally flawed from their New Deal-era origins.
• •Power Redistribution Beyond the Presidency: The ruling simultaneously weakens Congress — which created these job protections through statute — while expanding both executive and judicial authority. The conservative court majority now holds power to invalidate congressional agency structures, meaning the judiciary gains authority to determine which regulatory independence is constitutionally permissible and which is not.
• •Pendulum Effect for Future Administrations: Because this removal power is now constitutionally grounded rather than statutory, the next Democratic president inherits identical authority to immediately replace Trump-appointed agency commissioners across all affected independent regulators. Legal analysts note this could produce more sweeping regulatory reversals than previously possible under the old bipartisan, cause-required framework.