The Supreme Court Just Knocked Down One of the Final Guardrails Against Dictatorship

"The Supreme Court knocked down one of the final barriers to Donald Trump's unprecedented consolidation of power on Monday: By an apparent 6-3 vote, the conservative supermajority effectively greenlit Trump's illegal firing of a Federal Trade Commissioner and teed up the reversal of a 90-year-old precedent that prevents the president from exercising dictatorial control over government. It is bad enough that the court is clearly planning to let Trump construct the most submissive executive branch in history by purging his opponents from federal agencies."

"What's worse, though, is that the supermajority has ushered in this new era of autocratic presidency over the shadow docket, offering almost no public explanation for its radical moves. As Justice Elena Kagan wrote in her dissent, the court's Republican appointees have elected "to reshape the nation's separation of powers" in Trump's favor. And they're doing so without respecting the process that differentiates legal judgments from bare flexes of partisan muscle."

"The case began when Trump fired Rebecca Slaughter from the Federal Trade Commission in March-a blatantly illegal act. Congress prohibited the president from removing FTC commissioners like Slaughter without "good cause," and no such cause existed here. Rather, Trump terminated Slaughter because she was a Democrat, and he wanted absolute control over the agency."

By an apparent 6-3 vote, the Supreme Court's conservative supermajority allowed President Trump to fire an FTC commissioner and set the stage to overturn a 90-year precedent limiting presidential removal power. The decision arrived via the shadow docket with little public explanation, prompting a dissent that accused the court's Republican appointees of reshaping the nation's separation of powers. The case began after Trump terminated Rebecca Slaughter despite statutory protections requiring removal for "good cause," and the firings left the five-member FTC with three Republican commissioners and two vacancies. The ruling signals further transfers of authority from Congress to the executive branch.

Read at Slate Magazine