The Republican-controlled Supreme Court considers granting the Project 2025 will

The conservative Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 Blueprint called the 1935 Supreme Court precedent “ripe for revisiting — and perhaps soon.”

It came quickly.

The court will hear Monday whether to overturn that precedent, called Humphrey’s Executive v. United States, which protects independent agencies from presidential interference. The Trump administration has made it a priority to dismantle that freedom, and the court’s Republican-appointed majority is helping him do so in many agencies whose work affects critical aspects of American life.

Monday’s case, called Trump v. Assassination, is the court’s latest opportunity to empower the Republican president, though its ruling will likely extend beyond Donald Trump.

– Unless and until a future majority of the High Court reverses whatever it does in its subsequent decision.

A 1935 precedent is named for a lawsuit brought by the estate of William Humphrey. He was on the Federal Trade Commission, a five-person consumer protection agency whose members are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate; Staggered terms of commissioners extend administration; And not more than three of them can belong to the same political party. President Franklin Roosevelt tried to fire Humphrey before the commissioner’s term ended in 1933, and his executive sued for his pay when Roosevelt said he was fired until his death in 1934.

The High Court sided with Humphrey, emphasizing the importance of agency independence. The court noted that the law establishing the FTC provided that presidents could remove commissioners for “incompetence, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office” and that the government had not made such a claim against Humphrey. “The Commission must be impartial; and it must, by the nature of its duties, act with complete impartiality,” the court said.

Fast-forward a century later, when Trump tried to fire Democratic Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter from the same agency without cause. Citing Humphrey’s precedent, a federal judge rejected the move, as did an appeals panel — in dissent from the Trump appointee.

Heading into Monday’s hearing in Washington, the partisan divide is evident even on the high court. When it agreed to consider the administration’s appeal in September, the GOP-appointed majority also granted the government’s request to temporarily approve the slaughter firings while the lawsuit continues. The court’s three Democratic appointees dissented.

Writing for Three, Justice Elena Kagan noted that, under current precedent, Trump cannot fire a commissioner without cause. “In order to reach a different result it is necessary to reverse the rule stated in Humphrey’s: It needs to override, rather than acquiesce to, Congressional decisions about agency design,” she wrote.

“It may be rare for the majority to take that action,” he wrote, “until the deed is done, Humphrey’s controls, and prevents the majority from giving the president the unlimited removal power Congress has denied him.”

Monday’s hearing could shed light on how much power the court is willing to give Trump, though we won’t know for sure until the court rules on its decision, expected in early July.

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