The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is led by five presidentially appointed commissioners who may be removed from office only for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office. In 2025, President Trump attempted to fire Commissioners Rebecca Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya without cause, in violation of the FTC’s governing statute. President Trump asserts that the FTC’s leadership structure is unconstitutional because it allows the President to remove the agency’s commissioners only for good cause, not at will. In April 2025, CAC filed an amicus brief on behalf of roughly 250 Members of Congress in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in support of Slaughter and Bedoya.

President Trump argues that under the Supreme Court’s 2020 decision in Seila Law LLC v. CFPB, the FTC’s commissioners must be removable at will by the President. Our brief shows why this is wrong.

We first demonstrate that Seila Law did not call into question the legitimacy of agencies structured like the FTC, sometimes referred to as multimember independent agencies. As we explain, Seila Law addressed only the relatively new phenomenon of an agency led by a single director who is not removable at will. Based on three unique features of these single-director independent agencies, the Court concluded that they represent a novel intrusion on presidential authority that clashes with constitutional structure. The Court was clear, however, that it was not overruling its precedent upholding similar removal limits for the leaders of “a traditional independent agency, run by a multimember board.” None of the reasons the Supreme Court gave for striking down the leadership structure of the CFPB in Seila Law apply to the FTC—a traditional multimember agency that resembles agencies dating back 150 years in every constitutionally significant way.

Our brief next explains why long-established practice has placed the validity of multimember independent agencies like the FTC beyond doubt. In separation-of-powers cases, courts place significant weight upon historical practice, because it embodies the compromises and working arrangements that the elected branches of government themselves have reached. Congress has been assigning regulatory authority to multimember independent agencies for most of the nation’s history, beginning nearly 150 years ago. Supreme Court decisions, including Seila Law, have consistently confirmed the validity of these traditional agencies.

Finally, the text and history of the Constitution further underscore the legitimacy of multimember independent agencies. Apart from Congress’s power to impeach, the Constitution is silent with respect to the power of removal. Instead, it broadly empowers Congress to shape the federal government in the course of creating its “Departments” and “Officers.” There is no historical basis for the claim that Congress lacks any authority to modify or temper the President’s ability to remove federal officers. Constitutional text and history do not support President Trump’s assertion that good-cause tenure for FTC Commissioners violates his Article II authority.

In short, the FTC’s leadership structure is consistent with Supreme Court precedent and established practice, and Slaughter and Bedoya’s firing without good cause was unlawful.