CU Joins Amicus Brief in Trump v. Slaughter (Judicial Overreach)

Citizens United joins an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to stay a U.S. District Court order enjoining the removal of a Commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”). Trump v. Slaughter is another judicial overreach case in which a U.S. District Court judge issued an order purporting to block President Trump from firing an executive branch official on grounds that the official may only be fired for cause. The brief makes five primary arguments: (1) The lower courts in the case failed to consider increases in the FTC’s executive powers since it was first created in 1914 as a so called “quasi-judicial and quasi-legislative” independent agency; (2) under centuries old Supreme Court precedent a district court has no authority to block the removal of a subordinate governmental appointee even if he or she is wrongly removed from office; (3) the lowers courts failed to follow the U.S. Supreme Court’s guidance in two recent similar cases where it stayed district court orders purporting to reinstate officials removed from office by President Trump; (4) The Supreme Court should return to the “first principles of constitutional interpretation” that it followed in back in 1926 in Myers v. United States, when it recognized that Congress could not place restrictions on the President’s power to remove principal officers who exercise executive powers; and (5) While the power to remove an executive official is not expressly stated in the Constitution, that power is solidly grounded as an implied inherent power of the presidency.