Trump v. Slaughter · ¶240

To be sure, independent agencies are not carbon copies of one another, and there is some variation among their structures. Given the sensitive regulatory interests at stake and Congress’s general flexibility in designing federal offices, that nuance should come as no surprise. By and large, however, these agencies follow a remarkably consistent pattern: multimember commissions, with a chair selected by the President, often with bipartisan membership requirements, sometimes with a background-expertise requirement, and, often, with a restriction permitting removal only “for cause” or for specified causes. So too do these agencies generally carry out functions like the FTC’s: rulemaking, in-house adjudications, investigations, and occasional enforcement actions in court. In establishing agencies like the FTC, Congress has thus shown little difficulty applying the rule the majority today…

slip opinion, revised 7/07/26
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