Supreme Court sides with Trump in firing of FTC commissioner

The Supreme Court on Monday allowed President Trump to carry out his firing of a Federal Trade Commission board member — for now.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. issued a stay of a lower appeals court ruling that had said Mr. Trump overstepped his legal powers by firing Rebecca Slaughter from the FTC, and ordered her restored to office. The stay means Ms. Slaughter cannot regain her position yet and gives the high court more time to consider the case.

The ruling marks the fourth time the Supreme Court has backed Mr. Trump in his moves to fire members of independent agencies, though Ms. Slaughter’s case is likely the biggest of them all.

A 90-year-old high court ruling had found that a president — at the time Franklin Roosevelt — couldn’t fire an FTC member without good cause. Mr. Trump argues that precedent, known as Humphrey’s Executor, is wrong and needs to be overturned.

Lower courts ruled they are still bound by the precedent and decided in favor of Ms. Slaughter.

The Trump administration late last week asked the justices to intervene with an immediate halt to those rulings.

Chief Justice Roberts gave Ms. Slaughter a Sept. 15 deadline to respond to the case.

Previously, the high court has sided with Mr. Trump in preliminary rulings in his firing of officials at the National Labor Relations Board, the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the Merit Systems Protection Board.

The Trump Justice Department told the justices the FTC should be treated the same.

“In this case, the lower courts have once again ordered the reinstatement of a high-level officer wielding substantial executive authority whom the president has determined should not exercise any executive power, let alone significant rulemaking and enforcement powers,” said U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer.

The case hits directly at an ongoing issue about how much fealty lower court judges should pay to Supreme Court rulings on the “emergency docket.” Those are cases that rush to the justices in a preliminary posture and are handled without full argument.

The Trump administration has produced a flurry of those rulings.

Some legal experts have said the emergency orders are not binding precedent for lower courts to abide by.

But some recent Supreme Court rulings have urged lower courts to pay attention to the emergency docket rulings, leaving confusion about how to handle cases like Ms. Slaughter’s firing.