Following today’s Supreme Court Decision in Trump v. Slaughter, Thomas Berry, the director of the Cato Institute’s Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies, released the following statement:

“Today in Trump v. Slaughter, the Supreme Court held that the Federal Trade Commission’s for-cause removal provision is contrary to the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution. As the Court recounted, the Constitution creates a hierarchy below the elected president within the Executive Branch. As Alexander Hamilton explained in Federalist 72, those below the president “derive their offices from his appointment” and remain “subject to his superintendence.” And both logic and history show that to remain accountable to the president, those officers must be removable by him.

“The Court’s decision means that any agency that exercises executive power must be controlled by the Chief Executive. As a result, the commissioners of so-called “independent agencies” can now be fired at will by the president for policy disagreements. To the extent this is inconsistent with the Court’s prior decision in Humphrey’s Executor, the Court made clear that the case is overruled.

“Cato filed an amicus brief urging this result, and the Court’s decision vindicates the principles of democratic accountability that grounded our arguments. However much or little power the executive branch has, that power should be traceable and accountable to a democratically elected president, who can be praised or blamed for the decisions of his subordinates.”