Humphrey’s Executor Has Been Slaughtered: The Supreme Court has finally brought the administrative state back under elected control. (Ilya Shapiro, Jun 30 2026, City Journal)
[T]he Federal Trade Commission isn’t a debating society. It, along with its alphabet-agency brethren, writes rules with the force of law, investigates private parties, adjudicates violations, and sues in federal court on behalf of the United States. Whatever labels Congress attached to that body in the Progressive Era, the FTC—like the FCC, SEC, NLRB, and so on—today exercises executive power. And the Constitution vests “the executive power” in one president, not in commissioners serving staggered terms, answerable to no one whom voters can fire.
This ruling isn’t a gift to Donald Trump or his successors. It’s a restoration of constitutional accountability. Congress can create executive-branch agencies and specify what they may do, but it cannot create a fourth branch of government and then pretend its officers are independent of the only person the Constitution makes responsible for executing federal law.
Roberts put the point crisply at the end of Slaughter: “Subordinates who exercise the President’s power are subject to removal by him.” That’s a unitary, not an imperial, presidency, and it’s a hallmark of republican government.