"Exercising tremendous restraint, Chief Justice Roberts managed not to write " Executor? I hardly knew her!" on this morning's opinion functionally overruling Humphrey's Executor. Alas, that was the only restraint Roberts mustered today, employing the infamous "shadow docket" to toss 90 years of Supreme Court precedent to fit the dementia-fueled whims of his patron in the White House. He may be named John, but he's very much not the John in this relationship."
"Donald Trump wants to fire FTC commissioner Rebecca Slaughter, which the FTC's authorizing legislation and Supreme Court precedent - the aforementioned Humphrey's Executor - forbid. He fired her anyway and she sued. Both the district and appellate court blocked the firing on the grounds that the law, in fact, prevents Trump from doing this. In reversing the lower courts and allowing Trump to fire Slaughter, it's really too bad that Roberts declined to add the glib, two-sentence "hardly knew her" joke, because it would have DOUBLED the number of sentences he devoted to ending nearly a century of precedent."
Chief Justice Roberts issued a shadow-docket order permitting President Trump to remove FTC commissioner Rebecca Slaughter, despite statutory protections and longstanding precedent from Humphrey's Executor. The district and appellate courts had enjoined the firing, finding the statute and precedent barred such removal. The administration fired Slaughter anyway and sought immediate relief; the Supreme Court reversed the lower courts without a full signed opinion. The decision effectively dismantles decades of removal protections and drew sharp criticism for relying on emergency procedural mechanisms rather than a reasoned, published opinion explaining the legal rationale.
Read at Above the Law
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