Democratic FTC Commissioner Reinstatement Gets Paused (Correct)

A US appeals court granted the Trump administration’s request to temporarily freeze an order requiring it to reinstate FTC Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, preventing the Democrat from returning to the federal agency.

A panel of judges on the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit said late Monday that it was entering an administrative stay of a lower court ruling’s that held Slaughter’s firing illegal.

The order is meant “to give the court sufficient opportunity to consider the motion for a stay pending appeal and should not be construed in any way as a ruling on the merits of that motion,” the order from Judges Patricia A. Millett, Cornelia T.L. Pillard, and Neomi Rao said.

Slaughter and her former Democratic colleague at the Federal Trade Commission, Alvaro Bedoya, sued the administration in March, arguing their firings flouted the FTC Act, which says a president can remove a member of the FTC only for cause such as inefficiency or neglect of duty.

A federal trial judge on July 17 agreed with their argument, ordering Slaughter reinstated. The claims of Bedoya, however, who since resigned, were dismissed as moot.

Slaughter denounced the appeals court’s decision, saying it prevents her from doing the job Congress entrusted to her. She also suggested she’d use her position to shine a spotlight on the decisions of the FTC’s Republican majority.

“Right now, the FTC isn’t doing the job it should be to protect consumers and competition,” Slaughter said in a statement posted on X on Tuesday. “And Americans deserve to know why.”

At the center of Slaughter’s case is a 1935 Supreme Court ruling, Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, which established that a president couldn’t fire an FTC commissioner at will. The decision helped create a model for federal agencies with some independence from presidential politics, according to legal scholars.

But the Trump administration has argued those protections are unconstitutional and interfere with the president’s executive authority.

The Supreme Court in May ruled that Democratic members of the National Labor Relations Board and Merit Systems Protection Board can’t return to their jobs while legal challenges over their firings continue, noting the administration was likely to show the agencies “exercise considerable executive power.”

That high court ruling required a freeze of a district judge’s decision regarding Slaughter, the administration argued in an emergency motion Monday.

“The court’s reinstatement of a principal officer of the United States—in defiance of recent Supreme Court precedent staying similar reinstatements in other cases—works a grave harm to the separation of powers and the President’s ability to exercise his authority under the Constitution,” the administration said.

Slaughter’s lawyers filed a separate motion in DC federal district court Tuesday arguing their case was distinct from the one heard at the Supreme Court involving the NLRB and MSPB.

Further, the court’s decision “did not announce the sweeping new principle that defendants desire,” they said, arguing Slaughter should be allowed to return to the agency as the administration’s appeal moves forward.

Slaughter’s lawyers are also due to file a response to the administration in the DC Circuit by July 25.

Slaughter is represented by Clarick Gueron Reisbaum LLP and Protect Democracy Project.

The case is Slaughter v. Trump, D.C. Cir., No. 25-5261, administrative stay 7/21/25.