"[T]he court overruled its 91-year-old decision in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States... [M]ore broadly, Monday’s decision was a major victory for proponents of the 'unitary executive' theory..."

"... the idea that the president should have complete control over the executive branch. Under this theory, the president should be able to fire any member of the executive branch, and laws – like the one that the court struck down – that restrict his ability to do so violate the separation of powers. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts contended that 'the President must have the assistance of officers he can trust. Although it is up to the Senate to decide whether to confirm those with whom the President would prefer to work, neither Congress nor the courts may saddle him with those with whom he cannot work. Subordinates who exercise the President’s power are subject to removal by him. Then, and only then, can they remain accountable to the President, and the President to the people.'..."

I'm reading "Supreme Court allows Trump to fire FTC commissioner and overturns major restraint on presidential power" by Amy Howe at SCOTUSblog, writing about yesterday's Trump v. Slaughter.

"In a 36-page opinion... Roberts first emphasized that the Constitution gives the president '[t]he executive Power,' as well as the responsibility to 'take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.' The Framers of the Constitution, Roberts explained, wanted to create a system in which the one person, the president, was in charge of the executive branch. The officials who work for him, Roberts continued, are there to help him, but the president must be able to fire them if they are not performing well – so that he can carry out his own job. Roberts acknowledged the Supreme Court’s decision in Humphrey’s Executor, upholding the same law at the center of this case. But that decision, he contended, 'was tethered to a highly circumscribed and almost fictional view of the FTC’s role' as being 'very limited': 'they were "neither political nor executive, but predominantly quasi-judicial and quasi-legislative."' 'At this point,” Roberts reasoned, 'all that is left of Humphrey’s is its observation that an agency that "exercises no part of the executive power" need not fall within the rule of Presidential removal...."

The dissenting Justices favored the independence of the FTC and wanted to preserve it. But what of the Justice Gorsuch concurring opinion? Let's read the whole thing:

To fulfill his constitutional duty to ensure the laws are faithfully executed, the Court holds, the President must have the ability to remove principal officers who exercise executive power in his name. That includes those who run independent agencies like the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). With all this, I agree. 

But neither can I ignore the implications that follow. Today, independent agencies do not just exercise executive law-enforcement powers. Congress has also delegated to them vast legislative and judicial powers, effectively allowing these agencies to make laws and decide disputes under them. And, after today’s decision, the President can effectively exercise all those powers too. 

It’s a development that raises important questions, not least these: Would Congress have delegated so much power, including legislative and judicial power, to independent agencies had it known that the President would come to control them? How will Congress respond now—if realistically it can? And what, if anything, will this Court do about it?

Congress gave away it's own power to make law, thinking it was also restricting the President's power. Now, it can take that power back, but it must legislate, and it won't be easy. 

Begin with how we got here. One strand of the story runs this way, and it starts in the academy. In the early 20th century, a group of scholars including Woodrow Wilson and James Landis came to the view that our “simple tripartite form of government” was “inadequate . . . to deal with modern problems.” Really, they thought, our constitutional system had become “unworkable.” 

To meet modern challenges, Wilson and others argued, American government needed to reorient itself around the goal of operating with the “utmost possible efficiency.” Impressed by the perceived competence of the Prussian bureaucracy, they called on the Nation to stop “dogmatiz[ing] about the constitution of government.” In our changing world, they said, the project of “distinguish[ing] . . . between” legislative, executive, and judicial powers had to “give way . . . to the exigencies of governance.” 

All told, Wilson and his followers argued for an entirely new model of “[p]ublic administration.” To be sure, this model had its nuances, and its proponents their disagreements. But a few ideas were central to the project. First, new agencies needed to be created and staffed by scientific and technical “expert[s]” with the “technical skill” to translate “far-reaching . . . legislation into reality.” 

Second, these experts had to be insulated from political control. As Wilson put it, the Nation’s traditional commitment to “popular sovereignty” entrusted too much to a “selfish, ignorant, timid, stubborn, or foolish” people. And letting the public anywhere near the new bureaucracies would amount to letting “a rustic handl[e] delicate machinery.” 

Finally, to fulfill their new responsibilities, politically insulated agency experts needed power. Lots of it. Much more than just executive authority to enforce the laws Congress writes. They also required authority over “legislative and judicial acts.” All told, they needed “legislative power,” “executive power,” and—while they were at it—“whatever power might be required to achieve the desired results.”

They argued that separation of powers was obsolete. The experts — aloof from grubby politics, capable for finding the right solutions to the problems in our complex modern world — should be trusted to devise and implement the best policies.

Influential as these ideas were, they met with some hard realities as they progressed from the academy into the halls of government. For an illustration, look no further than the FTC itself and the case at the center of today’s dispute, Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, 295 U. S. 602 (1935). 

Congress created the FTC in 1914 through legislation that by-then President Wilson signed into law. In establishing the agency, Congress endowed it with considerable power both to define and prosecute “unfair methods of competition.” And in the same breath, Congress insulated the agency’s leadership from democratic control, at least to a degree: Once leaders were appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate, Congress provided, the President could remove them only “for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” 

Even so, the notion that the FTC and agencies like it would be led by technical experts who would neutrally and scientifically chart the Nation’s path soon began to look a bit “quaint.” Whatever the causes, it didn’t take long for the problem to surface. Just take William E. Humphrey. Politics rather than neutral technical expertise landed Humphrey the job, and they also soon made him a target for removal. Shortly after Democrats swept the election of 1932, President Franklin D. Roosevelt fired Humphrey for purely political reasons. 

If the Wilsonian vision of agencies run by neutral experts began buckling under the weight of reality early on, another feature of the plan stuck. Those in charge of these new agencies often became very difficult to dislodge. When President Roosevelt fired Humphrey, he had good reason to think he stood on firm legal ground based on Myers v. United States. As it turned out, the President’s expectations proved misplaced. This Court brushed Myers aside, upheld Congress’s removal restrictions, and declared Humphrey’s firing unlawful. 

After the Court’s ruling, Congress rolled out one new “independent” agency after another. Of course, the term “independent” was always a bit of a misnomer. These agencies were never truly independent from politics or even the influence of the President’s appointment powers. But the leadership of these new agencies at least enjoyed protection against at-will presidential removal. Congress turned out so many new independent agencies that a committee President Roosevelt assembled complained of the rise of a new “headless ‘fourth branch’ of the Government.” 

Congress’s newfound ability to insulate agencies from direct presidential control may have encouraged it to lean into the last essential pillar of Wilson’s design too. In Humphrey’s wake, Congress increasingly assigned broad powers to the agencies it created, including legislative and judicial powers. Independent agencies today hold tremendous sway over the Nation’s affairs. They regulate our businesses, our financial markets, the internet and airwaves, how we light our homes, run our elections, employment, what toys our children will play with, and how we interact with each other at work. Often, these agencies do all this with hardly any statutory guidance, based on broad grants of legislative authority. 

Nor have these agencies hesitated to employ the powers Congress has given them. Over time, Congress has afforded agencies not just sweeping legislative powers but judicial ones as well, including the power to decide cases and controversies affecting Americans’ private rights. 

Would Congress have gone so far down this road, delegating so much legislative and judicial power to agencies, without Humphrey’s assurance that their leaders would enjoy protection against at-will presidential removal? Maybe. But very possibly not. 

The Court’s decision today may take aim at removal protections and, in that way, one part of Wilson’s vision. But, as we have seen, other parts never fully materialized. It was never the case that neutral experts alone led the agencies Congress created. And it was never true that those agencies were entirely insulated from politics or even presidential influence. Myers was right all along and so was President Roosevelt: Humphrey’s did “violence to the basic theory of the American Constitution,” which leaves no room for a “headless ‘fourth branch.’” 

Instead, those who exercise executive power must be accountable through a “chain of dependence” running from the “lowest officers” to “the President,” and from him to the sovereign American people. But if today’s decision represents an important step back toward the Constitution, it’s also worth considering the implications it holds for the last remaining pillar of Wilson’s plan. Congress has not just assigned executive law-enforcement power to independent agencies. It has delegated extensive lawmaking and adjudicative functions to them as well. Today’s decision may not have occasion to address those delegations directly, but it carries weighty consequences for them. 

The whole of the President’s authority also may be greater than the sum of its parts. Presidents now will enjoy waxing authority over all those areas and more. If all that weren’t enough, Presidents have many other ways to consolidate their influence over agencies—both traditional executive agencies and now-formerly independent ones. 

So, yes, those who exercise executive power must be ultimately answerable to the President and, through him, to the American people. But while electoral accountability is a good thing, it cannot be the only thing. And allowing Presidents to control not only executive functions, but also vast new reservoirs of legislative and judicial powers, risks inviting exactly what those who framed our Constitution feared: the “accumulation of all powers . . . in the same hands.” 

If allowing so much legislative and judicial power to accumulate in the President’s hands invites real risks, the question becomes: Who will address them? At first blush, the most natural answer might seem Congress. But there’s a straightforward problem with it. Any President keen on his own authority will have a strong incentive to veto any effort to reclaim those powers. The consequence is a ratchet effect. 

Perhaps, then, if any real response is to come it will have to come from this Court. This Court bears responsibility as well. It was this Court that decided Humphrey’s. It was this Court that sat by while Congress delegated vast legislative and judicial powers to one independent agency after another. And it is this Court that today allows the President to remove those agencies’ leaders and exercise effective control over all their powers. 

Fortunately, the Constitution provides the blueprint for the job ahead. That charter provides a far surer and more democratically legitimate scheme of “public administration” than anything Wilson conjured up. This Court already has many doctrines designed to protect the Constitution’s separation of powers, including the nondelegation doctrine, the major questions doctrine, vagueness doctrine, and our doctrines addressing Article III, the Due Process Clause, and the Seventh Amendment. 

We have, then, no shortage of tools. The only real question is whether we will use them. Whatever merit these objections once might have held, they now speak to a bygone era. Now, we face only two ways forward: Let Presidents exercise all those powers or begin subjecting them to the Constitution’s constraints. 

The Court today takes a notable step back toward the Constitution. By recognizing that the President is entitled to remove a principal officer who exercises executive power in his name, the Court does much to vindicate what Franklin D. Roosevelt and James Madison both understood. At the same time, it would be a grave mistake to think that step is enough on its own. The fact remains that Congress has endowed formerly independent agencies not just with executive authority, but with enormous legislative and judicial powers as well. And now the President enjoys control over all those powers too. From here, the only sure path is to finish the journey we start today and restore legislative and judicial powers to where they belong: in Congress and the courts. We have tolerated adventurous theories long enough. It is time to return, all the way, to the Constitution.

This is a call to judicial activism — using the tools the courts already have at their disposal and have been too restrained to use: "the nondelegation doctrine, the major questions doctrine, vagueness doctrine, and our doctrines addressing Article III, the Due Process Clause, and the Seventh Amendment."