The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Monday in a case with the potential to overturn a long-established limit on the president’s power to fire the leaders of independent agencies. The limit was established in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States (1935).

The present case, Trump v. Slaughter, centers on the legality of President Trump’s attempt to fire Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Kelly Slaughter from their positions as members of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in March earlier this year. The FTC web site lists the final days of employment for both commissioners as March 18.

Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued that Humphrey’s Executor is “an indefensible outlier” in the history of interpretations of the president’s authority to fire officials, as found in Article II of

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