A Posthumous Reexamination of Humphrey’s Executor

The Supreme Court recently overruled Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, a case that protected independent agency leaders from politically motivated removals. This landmark case arose from President Franklin Roosevelt’s decision to remove William Humphrey from his position on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over policy disagreements. When the FTC was established in 1914, Congress limited the President’s power to remove commissioners to circumstances involving “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” After Humphrey died, the executor of his estate challenged Roosevelt’s actions. The Court held that Congress could constitutionally restrict the President’s ability to remove the heads of independent agencies through for-cause removal protections.

For more than 90 years, Humphrey’s Executor played an influential role in the construction of the federal bureaucracy by allowing Congress to provide for-cause removal protections to many independent agency leaders. Over time, however, scholarly opinion about the decision split. Critics contended that courts had extended the decision beyond its narrow scope and improperly limited the President’s executive authority. Supporters, by contrast, argued that the case was essential to ensuring that partisan presidential politics would not overwhelm the expertise of independent agencies.

The Supreme Court’s 2020 ruling in Seila Law v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau renewed scholarly discussion of the President’s removal powers. In a divided decision, five Justices held that for-cause removal protection for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s single director violated the President’s Article II authority. The Court’s ruling limited the applicability of Humphrey’s Executor to agencies headed by multi-member bodies.

On June 29, 2026, in Trump v. Slaughter, the Supreme Court held, in a 6-3 decision, that the FTC’s for-cause removal provision violated the separation of powers. The decision overruled Humphrey’s Executor, increasing presidential control over the administrative state.

The overruling of Humphrey’s Executor has drawn media attention to agency independence and presidential oversight. Proponents of a strong executive branch view the ruling as a restoration of the President’s constitutional powers. Critics fear that the decision will strip agencies of their independence and expertise. The decision’s effects on the administrative state remain uncertain.

In this week’s Saturday Seminar, scholars share their views on Humphrey’s Executor and predict how the case’s overruling will affect governmental agencies.

• In an article in the Thomas Law Review, Nicholas Barrow, a Georgetown University Law Center graduate, argues that Humphrey’s Executor has been applied far beyond its original holding, undermining the Constitution’s separation-of-powers doctrine. He contends that courts have extended Humphrey’s Executor to independent agencies that exercise core executive functions—including rulemaking, investigations, enforcement, and adjudication—and have thereby insulated those agencies from presidential control. Instead, Barrow proposes that Congress promote agency independence through constitutionally permissible means, such as appointment structures, appropriations, or political checks. He concludes that faithfully applying Humphrey’s Executor requires limiting its applicability to officials who do not exercise executive power, thereby restoring both the separation of powers and democratic accountability.
• In an article in the UC Davis Law Review Online, Robert Pushaw, a professor at Pepperdine Caruso School of Law, argues that Congress may condition the removal of independent agency officials on good cause. He contends that because Article II never says the President can remove officials at will, that power must be read into the Constitution. Pushaw argues that an implied power can extend no further than necessary for the President to perform his constitutional duties. Pushaw argues that the Necessary and Proper Clause allows Congress to provide employment protections. He interprets Article I as giving Congress the power to decide whether executive officials can be removed at will or only for good cause.
• In an article written for the Alabama Law Review, Eli Nachmany, an associate at Covington & Burling LLP, argues that Humphrey’s Executor should not protect modern FTC commissioners from at-will presidential removal. He contends that the Supreme Court upheld the FTC’s removal protections in 1935 because the agency at that time exercised limited powers in aid of Congress and operated as a predominantly quasi-judicial and quasi-legislative body. Nachmany traces how Congress later changed the agency through statutes such as the Wheeler-Lea Act, the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Authorization Act, and the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act. Those changes, he argues, gave the modern FTC powers to litigate independently, seek civil penalties and consumer redress, and issue rules, making its commissioners executive officials subject to presidential removal.
• Aaron Nielson, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law, and Christopher Walker, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School, argue in a forthcoming Virginia Law Review article that Article II jurisprudence threatens the civil service. The authors explain that the S. Department of Justice has claimed that removal protections for civil service positions violate the President’s Article II powers. In light of the Justice Department’s assertions, Nielson and Walker argue that overruling Humphrey’s Executor may embolden the Trump administration to seek more aggressive avenues for removing civil servants. The authors warn that high-ranking civil servants may be subject to at-will removal, while most of the federal workforce retains its protections.
• In an article in the Notre Dame Law Review Reflection, Emily Bremer, a professor at Notre Dame Law School, and William Eskridge, a professor at Yale Law School, predict that overruling Humphrey’s Executor would not drastically affect the nation’s career civil service servants. Instead, the authors explain that due process employment protections can coexist with a strong executive. They argue that the Supreme Court’s choice to distinguish administrative law judges and inferior officers from department heads suggests that the Justices would allow many federal employees to retain their for-cause removal protections. Bremer and Eskridge conclude that civil servants should retain their protections to maintain agency impartiality and independence.
• In an article in the Pepperdine Law Review, Neal Devins, a professor at William and Mary Law School, asserts that overruling Humphrey’s Executor will not have significant consequences for the administrative state. Devins argues that the President already exercises substantial control over government agencies. Devins suggests that the President’s ability to appoint agency heads and influence agency decision-making effectively ensures that agencies carry out the President’s agenda. Devins argues that Congress can achieve true agency independence only by using its confirmation and appropriations powers more effectively. Devins concludes that Congress is unlikely to do so because Congress remains polarized and neither party holds a supermajority.