WASHINGTON − President Donald Trump’s attempt to increase his power by taking control of independent agencies comes before the Supreme Court on Dec. 8 in the second of at least four major cases on Trump’s expansive view of presidential authority the justices are considering this term.

Trump wants the court to overturn a 1935 decision limiting presidents’ ability to remove leaders of multi-member administrative agencies that could include the Federal Reserve and the Federal Trade Commission.

He may get his wish because the court has been chipping away at the decision since 2010.

And even if the court’s conservative supermajority doesn’t completely repeal the ruling, they’re expected to further curtail its reach, reshaping the balance of power between the president, independent federal agencies and Congress.

The justices could at least allow Trump to control the Federal Trade Commission, which enforces a variety of antitrust and consumer protection laws affecting virtually every area of commerce.

Many other agencies could be affected, including the Federal Reserve and agencies that enforce campaign finance laws, protect workers, stop fraudulent business practices, regulate broadcasting and broadband services, investigate air and road accidents and more.

“This case marks a pivotal moment for the separation of powers, with the potential to redefine how dozens of government agencies operate,” said Varu Chilakamarri, a former Justice Department attorney now with the law firm K&L Gates.

Conservatives push 'unitary executive theory'

The agencies were set up by Congress to be led by politically balanced boards of experts serving fixed terms.

But under the “unitary executive theory” that conservatives have advanced for years, the Constitution gives presidents complete control over executive functions, which must include the power to remove commission members. Otherwise, conservatives contend, agencies aren’t sufficiently accountable to the public, a defect that has led to what critics refer to as the “administrative state.”

“Congress has the power to create a vast and varied executive bureaucracy, but it cannot place that bureaucracy outside of the president's responsibility,” said Oliver Dunford, an attorney with the libertarian Pacific Legal Foundation.

Trump has tried to remove multiple agency leaders

After taking office, Trump declared that all federal agencies are under his control.

In March, Trump fired the two Democratic members of the five-member Federal Trade Commission board, Rebecca Kelly Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya.

Relying on the Supreme Court’s 1935 decision in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, lower courts said Trump can only remove FTC members for wrongdoing – which Trump hasn’t alleged.

Courts made similar rulings about the president’s firing of Democratic members from the Consumer Product Safety Commission and from two federal labor boards.

But the Supreme Court intervened, allowing those firings to proceed as they’re being challenged. The court also agreed to decide on an expedited basis whether the removal protections Congress created for FTC commissioners are consistent with the Constitution’s division of authority among the three branches of government.

The court separately agreed to hear arguments in January about Trump’s ability to fire a member of the Federal Reserve if he thinks she’s done something wrong.

In still another case about presidential power, the court is deciding whether Trump can impose sweeping tariffs on imports even though the Constitution gives Congress the power to raise revenue.

And on Friday, Dec. 5, the court agreed to decide if Trump's interpretation of the Constitution means he can deny citizenship to some babies born in the United States.

Trump argues the ability to fire is 'indispensable'

In the case the high court will hear Dec. 8, Trump v. Slaughter, the administration will argue that the president’s ability to remove a leader of an agency is “indispensable” to his responsibility under the Constitution to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.”

In 1935, however, the Supreme Court said the Federal Trade Commission’s duties were “neither political nor executive, but predominantly quasi-judicial and quasi-legislative.”

“Like the Interstate Commerce Commission, its members are called upon to exercise the trained judgment of a body of experts 'appointed by law and informed by experience,’” Justice George Sutherland wrote for the court. “Such a body cannot in any proper sense be characterized as an arm or an eye of the executive."

The Justice Department argues that even if that was a correct interpretation of the FTC in 1935 − which it disputes − it’s not now.

“The modern-day FTC, like its many independent-agency counterparts and its 1935 predecessor, exercises executive power – indeed, quite a bit of it,” Solicitor General John Sauer said in a written filing.

The FTC can seek court orders and civil penalties against businesses, write rules businesses must follow and investigate potential violations of the law, he said.

“This Court should overrule anything that remains of Humphrey’s Executor,” he wrote.

Can the president treat the FTC 'like his little lapdog'?

Alvaro Bedoya, one of the two FTC commissioners fired by Trump, said if the Supreme Court agrees with the president, he wil be able to treat FTC and other agencies “like his little lapdog.”

In September, the FTC settled with Amazon over the agency’s allegations that the online retail giant tricked customers into signing up for its Prime memberships and made it difficult to unsubscribe.

The FTC called that $2.5 billion settlement historic. But Bedoya doesn’t think it was tough enough on the Amazon executives involved. And he said the FTC won’t be taken seriously if the public sees such deals months after Amazon contributed $1 million to Trump’s inauguration.

“It calls into question the ability to police all sorts of industries that are really basic to our lives,” he said of the president’s desire to fire agency leaders at will.

But the justices may not be receptive to that argument.

When the court, in July, allowed Trump to fire three Democratic members of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, Justice Elena Kagan – one of the court’s three liberals – said her conservative colleagues had “all but overturned Humphey’s Executor.”

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, one of the six conservative justices, said there’s “at least a fair prospect” that the court will overrule it.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump bid to expand power comes before Supreme Court

Reporting by Maureen Groppe, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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