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President Donald Trump took a victory lap on Monday following a key ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court regarding the scope of executive authority as it relates to the Federal Trade Commission.
“Today’s Historic Slaughter Decision by the Supreme Court is the Greatest Increase in Presidential Power in the last 100 years,” President Trump declared on Truth Social. “Such a Monumental Ruling at such an important time!”
In Trump v. Slaughter, the high court ruled 6-3 that the President of the United States holds authority over the FTC, therefore expanding the power of the Executive Branch.
“Although it is up to the Senate to decide whether to confirm those with whom the President would prefer to work, neither Congress nor the courts may saddle him with those with whom he cannot work,” wrote Chief Justice John Roberts in the majority opinion.
He continued, “Subordinates who exercise the President’s power are subject to removal by him. Then, and only then, can they remain accountable to the President, and the President to the people.”
Monday’s opinion overruled a decision from 1935, Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, which had weakened presidential control over the regulatory body, according to CBS.
“To show the importance of the Slaughter Case, 90 years of precedent has been COMPLETELY AND UNEQUIVOCALLY OVERRULED, greatly increasing Presidential Power at a time when it is most needed!” President Trump said.
In his concurring opinion, Justice Neil Gorsuch suggested that Monday’s ruling was at least a vindication for New Deal-era President Franklin D. Roosevelt and President James Madison.
Gorsuch wrote, “The Court today takes a notable step back toward the Constitution.”
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, writing the dissenting opinion, argued against the majority, writing, “Today, this Court undoes centuries of political practice and concludes that all three branches of Government have been acting in open defiance of the Constitution all this time.”
Sotomayor made the case that Congress “may limit the causes for which the heads of Commissions like the FTC can be removed by the President,” and warned that by holding otherwise, the court merely gives the president “a power unknown even to the English Crown against which the Founders revolted, elevating him above his once-coequal branches by transforming a duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executive into a license to act in defiance of those very laws.”