You’re Fired! Trump, Tenure Protection, and the Future of Humphrey’s Executor

The recent flurry of firings in the federal government has sparked new questions surrounding the president’s removal power and its limits. Several lawsuits have now been filed over precisely these questions. These suits could bring an old case back to the forefront—Humphrey's Executor v. United States—in which the Supreme Court ruled that the president cannot constitutionally remove an FTC Commissioner without "inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office," as ordered in the FTC Act. Solicitor General Sarah M. Harris has recently advised the Committee on the Judiciary that these “for-cause removal provisions [...] are unconstitutional and that the Department [of Justice] will no longer defend their constitutionality.”

Will this ruling stand, and should it? Is it true that, as the Court reasoned in 1935, the Constitution does not confer an "illimitable power of removal" on the President? Join this FedSoc Forum to discuss these questions and more.

Featuring:

• Prof. Jonathan Adler, Johan Verheij Memorial Professor of Law and Director, Coleman P. Burke Center for Environmental Law, Case Western Reserve University School of Law
• Dr. Dan Epstein, Assistant Professor of Law, St. Thomas University College of Law
• Prof. Victoria Nourse, Ralph V. Whitworth Professor in Law, Georgetown University Law Center
• Will Yeatman, Senior Legal Fellow, Pacific Legal Foundation
• Moderator: Elizabeth Slattery, Director of Constitutional Scholarship, Pacific Legal Foundation

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To register, click the link above.

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As always, the Federalist Society takes no position on particular legal or public policy issues; all expressions of opinion are those of the speaker.