Humphrey's Executor v. United States

Common card · No. 433060

Humphrey's Executor v. United States, 295 U.S. 602 (1935), was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that ruled that the U.S. Congress may limit the power of the president of the United States to fire certain government officials, even though the president is the chief executive of the U.S. government. The Court ruled that the U.S. Constitution allows Congress to restrict the president's authority to dismiss the leaders of independent agencies that are "quasi-legislative" or "quasi-judicial" in nature. The case stemmed from President Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1933 dismissal of William E. Humphrey as a commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Roosevelt had fired Humphrey over policy disagreements involving economic regulation and the New Deal, despite the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914 giving the president the power to remove an FTC commissioner only for "inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office." The Court unanimously held that this limitation on the president...

Read on Wikipedia