Syllabus

In 1914, Congress created the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) as a five-member multimember commission whose members may be removed by the President only for "inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office." 15 U. S. C. § 41. Ninety years ago, in Humphrey's Executor v. United States, 295 U. S. 602 (1935), this Court upheld that removal restriction. Today, the FTC bears little resemblance to the agency Humphrey's Executor described as "predominantly quasi-judicial and quasi-legislative" with duties "neither political nor executive." 295 U. S., at 624. The modern FTC files civil enforcement actions, promulgates substantive rules of conduct, issues final orders enforceable without judicial intervention, and conducts foreign-relations cooperation with peer authorities abroad. Whatever else may be said about those functions, they are exercises of "the 'executive Power.'" Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, 591 U. S. 197, 216 n. 2 (2020).

In March 2025, President Trump removed respondent Rebecca Kelly Slaughter from her position as an FTC Commissioner, citing the Constitution rather than the statutory grounds. The District Court for the District of Columbia held the removal unlawful and reinstated her. The D. C. Circuit denied a stay pending appeal. This Court granted the stay, treated the application as a petition for certiorari before judgment, and granted the petition.

Held:

1. The for-cause removal restriction in 15 U. S. C. § 41, as applied to a Commissioner of the modern Federal Trade Commission, violates the separation of powers. Pp. 5–32.

   (a) Article II vests "the executive Power" in the President alone and obliges him to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed." Art. II, § 1, cl. 1; § 3. The general rule is that the President may remove officers who exercise that executive power on his behalf. The rule was settled by the First Congress in 1789, recognized by this Court in Ex parte Hennen, 13 Pet. 230 (1839), confirmed in Myers v. United States, 272 U. S. 52 (1926), and reiterated in Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, 561 U. S. 477 (2010), and Seila Law. Only two exceptions to that rule have been recognized: a narrow one for inferior officers with limited duties and no policymaking authority, see Morrison v. Olson, 487 U. S. 654 (1988); and the exception established in Humphrey's Executor for a body whose members were "balanced along partisan lines, that performed legislative and judicial functions and was said not to exercise any executive power," Seila Law, 591 U. S., at 216. Pp. 5–11.

   (b) The factual premise on which Humphrey's Executor rested — that the 1935 FTC "occupied no place in the executive department" and "exercised no part of the executive power vested by the Constitution in the President," 295 U. S., at 628 — "has not withstood the test of time," Seila Law, 591 U. S., at 216 n. 2. The modern FTC exercises executive power across every dimension this Court has identified as such. It files civil enforcement actions; it promulgates substantive rules; it issues final adjudicatory orders that take effect without judicial enforcement; it conducts investigations to determine whether to bring suit; and it negotiates international cooperation agreements. The Court need not reconsider whether the 1935 FTC fit the description Humphrey's Executor gave of it. The modern FTC plainly does not. Pp. 11–20.

   (c) The Court is therefore "asked to extend these precedents to a 'new situation,'" Seila Law, 591 U. S., at 217, and declines to do so. The structural reasoning of Free Enterprise Fund, Seila Law, and Collins v. Yellen, 594 U. S. 220 (2021), forecloses the extension. An officer exercising significant executive power who cannot be removed by the President except for narrow statutory causes cannot be held meaningfully accountable to the elected Executive — and through him, to the people. "Without such power, the President could not be held fully accountable for discharging his own responsibilities; the buck would stop somewhere else." Free Enterprise Fund, 561 U. S., at 514. Pp. 20–26.

   (d) Stare decisis does not require a different result. We do not formally overrule Humphrey's Executor. The holding of that decision concerned, by its own terms, "officers of the kind here under consideration," 295 U. S., at 632 — a body the Court characterized as exercising "no part of the executive power vested by the Constitution in the President." 295 U. S., at 628. We hold today, as we held in Seila Law, that this characterization does not extend to officers who exercise the executive power the modern FTC exercises. The Federal Reserve System, see Trump v. Wilcox, 145 S. Ct. 1415 (2025), and adjudicative bodies of the kind addressed in Wiener v. United States, 357 U. S. 349 (1958), are not before the Court today, and nothing in this opinion resolves their constitutional status. Pp. 26–29.

2. The unconstitutional removal restriction in 15 U. S. C. § 41 is severable from the remainder of the Federal Trade Commission Act. The agency continues in operation; its Commissioners remain removable by the President. Cf. Free Enterprise Fund, 561 U. S., at 508–509; Seila Law, 591 U. S., at 234–237. Pp. 29–31.

3. Because the President's removal of respondent was lawful under the Constitution as construed today, the District Court's judgment cannot stand. We do not reach the second question presented. Pp. 31–32.

The judgment of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

Opinion of the Court

The Federal Trade Commission was established in 1914 as an experiment in regulating a particular kind of economic conduct — "unfair methods of competition in commerce." Federal Trade Commission Act, ch. 311, § 5, 38 Stat. 717, 719. The experiment has succeeded. Today, the Commission enforces or administers more than 80 federal statutes governing matters ranging from credit reporting and debt collection to children's online privacy and the regulation of horseracing. See Pet. Br. 6; 15 U. S. C. § 41 et seq. In the course of that work, the Commission files lawsuits in federal court seeking civil penalties; it promulgates substantive rules of conduct binding on private parties; it issues final adjudicatory orders that take effect without judicial enforcement; and it cooperates with foreign authorities pursuant to international agreements. Those are exercises of "the 'executive Power'" within the meaning of Article II. Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, 591 U. S. 197, 216 n. 2 (2020).

The Federal Trade Commission Act provides that "any Commissioner may be removed by the President for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office." 15 U. S. C. § 41. In March 2025, President Trump removed respondent Rebecca Kelly Slaughter from her position as a Commissioner without invoking any of those grounds. He acted instead "pursuant to my authority under Article II of the Constitution." J. A. 28. The District Court for the District of Columbia held the removal unlawful and reinstated respondent. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit denied a stay pending appeal. We granted the Government's application for a stay, treated it as a petition for a writ of certiorari before judgment, and granted the petition.

The case requires us to decide whether the statutory restriction on the President's power to remove FTC Commissioners can constitutionally be applied to officers exercising the executive power the modern FTC exercises. We hold that it cannot. The judgment of the District Court is reversed.

I

We begin where these cases must begin: with Article II of the Constitution. "The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America." Art. II, § 1, cl. 1. The President "shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed." § 3. From the founding generation forward, this Court has understood those two clauses to do more than describe a grant of authority. They impose a responsibility, and they imply the means by which the responsibility may be discharged.

Chief among those means is the power to choose, and to dismiss, those who exercise the executive power in the President's name. Because "no single person could fulfill that responsibility alone, the Framers expected that the President would rely on subordinate officers for assistance." Seila Law, 591 U. S., at 203–204. "The President's executive power generally includes the power to supervise—and, if necessary, remove—those who exercise the President's authority on his behalf." Id., at 204. That removal power "follows from the text of Article II, was settled by the First Congress, and was confirmed in the landmark decision Myers v. United States, 272 U. S. 52 (1926)." Ibid.

The proposition has long been understood as essential to constitutional structure. Without the removal power, the Court explained in Free Enterprise Fund, the President "could not be held fully accountable for discharging his own responsibilities; the buck would stop somewhere else." 561 U. S., at 514. "The diffusion of power carries with it a diffusion of accountability." Id., at 497. The people do not vote for the officers of the United States; "they instead look to the President to guide the assistants or deputies subject to his superintendence." Id., at 498 (internal quotation marks omitted). "A key 'constitutional means' vested in the President was 'the power of appointing, overseeing, and controlling those who execute the laws.'" Id., at 499 (quoting 1 Annals of Cong. 463 (1789) (statement of James Madison)).

Two Terms ago, in Trump v. United States, 603 U. S. 593 (2024), the Court confirmed that the President's authority over the removal of executive officers stands among his "conclusive and preclusive" constitutional authorities. "[T]he President's 'management of the Executive Branch' requires him to have 'unrestricted power to remove the most important of his subordinates' . . . 'in their most important duties.'" Id., at 620–621 (quoting Nixon v. Fitzgerald, 457 U. S. 731, 750 (1982)). Where the President's authority is conclusive and preclusive, "Congress cannot act on, and courts cannot examine, the President's actions." Trump, 603 U. S., at 606.

II

The general rule that the President may remove those who exercise executive power on his behalf has, however, two long-recognized exceptions, neither of which is sufficient to sustain the statutory restriction before us.

The first exception, announced in Humphrey's Executor, sustained for-cause removal protections for the FTC Commissioners. The Court reasoned that the FTC, "in the contemplation of the statute, must be free from executive control," 295 U. S., at 628, because its functions were "neither political nor executive, but predominantly quasi-judicial and quasi-legislative," id., at 624. Because the FTC "occupies no place in the executive department" and "exercises no part of the executive power vested by the Constitution in the President," id., at 628, the Court held that Congress could fix a term of office and forbid removal except for cause.

The second exception, announced in Morrison, sustained for-cause removal protection for an independent counsel charged with criminal investigation of high-ranking executive officials. The Court did not adopt the "purely executive" / "quasi-legislative" distinction on which Humphrey's Executor had rested. Indeed, the Court rejected it: "[T]he determination of whether the Constitution allows Congress to impose a 'good cause'-type restriction on the President's power to remove an official cannot be made to turn on whether or not that official is classified as 'purely executive.'" 487 U. S., at 689. Instead, the Court asked whether the removal restrictions were "of such a nature that they impede the President's ability to perform his constitutional duty." Id., at 691.

Both exceptions have been subject to substantial intervening clarification. In Free Enterprise Fund, we held that "such multilevel protection from removal is contrary to Article II's vesting of the executive power in the President." 561 U. S., at 484. "The President cannot 'take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed' if he cannot oversee the faithfulness of the officers who execute them." Ibid. In Seila Law, we held that the structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — a single-director independent agency wielding significant executive power — could not be reconciled with the constitutional design. 591 U. S., at 204. And in Collins v. Yellen, we extended that holding to the Federal Housing Finance Agency, observing that "[a] straightforward application of our reasoning in Seila Law dictates the result," 594 U. S., at 251, and that "the nature and breadth of an agency's authority is not dispositive in determining whether Congress may limit the President's power to remove its head," id., at 251–252.

In the course of confirming those modern decisions, the Court has also addressed the doctrinal foundations of Humphrey's Executor itself. In Seila Law, we observed that "[t]he Court's conclusion that the FTC did not exercise executive power has not withstood the test of time." 591 U. S., at 216 n. 2. The decision survives, as we explained, only as confined to "the set of powers the Court considered as the basis for its decision." Id., at 219 n. 4. The question is whether the modern FTC exercises the kind of power Humphrey's Executor had in mind.

It does not.

III

A

The FTC of 1935 was, as Humphrey's Executor described it, primarily an investigative and reporting body whose orders required judicial enforcement to take legal effect. 295 U. S., at 621, 628. It made recommendations to courts as a "master in chancery." Id., at 628. It conducted investigations and "publish[ed] reports for the information of Congress." Ibid. The Court characterized those functions as "quasi-judicial" or "quasi-legislative," and treated the agency as "wholly disconnected from the executive department." Id., at 630.

That description bears little resemblance to the agency before us today. The modern FTC files lawsuits in federal court seeking restitution, civil penalties, and injunctions against private parties. See 15 U. S. C. §§ 45(m)(1)(A), 53(b), 57b. It promulgates substantive rules of conduct binding on the regulated public. See 15 U. S. C. § 57a; 15 U. S. C. § 6502(b)(1) (Children's Online Privacy Protection Act); 15 U. S. C. § 3053 (Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act). It issues final orders in administrative adjudications that take effect without judicial intervention. See 15 U. S. C. § 45(g), (l). It investigates potential violations of the laws it administers and decides whether to bring civil enforcement action. See 15 U. S. C. § 46. And it cooperates with foreign law-enforcement counterparts under international agreements. See 15 U. S. C. § 46(j).

B

Each of those functions is an exercise of executive power. We have said so repeatedly. "[T]he activities of administrative agencies take 'legislative' and 'judicial' forms"; nevertheless, "they are exercises of—indeed, under our constitutional structure they must be exercises of—'the executive Power.'" Seila Law, 591 U. S., at 216 n. 2 (quoting City of Arlington v. FCC, 569 U. S. 290, 305 n. 4 (2013)).

The point is not novel. Decisions to "bring civil suits seeking substantial fines" and to "issue final orders in administrative adjudications" have long been understood as core executive functions. Free Enterprise Fund, 561 U. S., at 485. "A lawsuit is the ultimate remedy for a breach of the law, and it is to the President, through his Attorney General and Solicitor General, that the Constitution entrusts the responsibility to 'take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.'" Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1, 138 (1976). Rulemaking that "fleshes out" statutory standards is likewise an exercise of executive power. Seila Law, 591 U. S., at 218–219. And investigative authority — the authority to determine whether to pursue enforcement against a particular target — falls "within the special province of the Executive Branch." Trump v. United States, 603 U. S., at 620.

Respondent does not deny that the FTC exercises these powers today. She contends, instead, that Humphrey's Executor does not turn on whether the agency exercises executive power but on whether the agency is structured as a multimember body of experts insulated by tradition from political control. Resp. Br. 12, 20–22. The argument requires us to read Humphrey's Executor as drawing a categorical line: multimember commissions exercising mixed functions may always be protected by for-cause removal, regardless of the executive character of their work.

We cannot so read it. Humphrey's Executor itself disclaimed any such ambition. The Court limited its holding to "officers of the kind here under consideration," 295 U. S., at 632, and was careful to identify "the kind" by reference to function rather than form. The Court repeatedly emphasized that the 1935 FTC "exercises no part of the executive power vested by the Constitution in the President," 295 U. S., at 628, and that its duties were "neither political nor executive," id., at 624. The decision's logic depends on those propositions. Strip them away, and there is nothing left to distinguish Humphrey's Executor from Myers.

Subsequent decisions have made that point explicit. Morrison rejected the "purely executive" / "quasi-legislative" distinction as "more than the text will bear." 487 U. S., at 689. Seila Law declared that Humphrey's Executor's "conclusion that the FTC did not exercise executive power has not withstood the test of time." 591 U. S., at 216 n. 2. Collins held that "the nature and breadth of an agency's authority is not dispositive." 594 U. S., at 251–252. Together, those decisions leave Humphrey's Executor with its core holding intact — that the 1935 FTC as the Court then understood it could be insulated from at-will removal — but with no doctrinal foundation for extending that holding to officers exercising the executive power the modern FTC exercises.

C

The dissent reads our recent decisions differently. In its view, Seila Law and Collins are anomaly decisions — Seila Law responding to the "almost wholly unprecedented" single-director structure of the CFPB, 591 U. S., at 220, and Collins applying Seila Law's logic to a similar single-director agency. On that reading, our cases preserve a traditional core: a multimember body of partisan-balanced experts, serving staggered terms, removable only for cause, is constitutional regardless of the executive power its members wield.

We do not think the cases can bear that reading. Seila Law explained that Humphrey's Executor permits Congress to give "for-cause removal protections to a multimember body of experts, balanced along partisan lines, that performed legislative and judicial functions and was said not to exercise any executive power." 591 U. S., at 216 (emphasis added). The phrase "and was said not to exercise any executive power" is not surplus. It identifies a factual premise on which Humphrey's Executor's holding rested. Collins confirmed the point by holding that "the nature and breadth of an agency's authority is not dispositive." 594 U. S., at 251–252. The dissent's reading effectively converts "not dispositive" into "irrelevant." That is not what the Court held.

There is, in addition, the implication of the dissent's view for cases this Court has not decided. If multimember structure alone sufficed to sustain a for-cause restriction, Congress could in principle convert any executive department into a multimember commission. The dissent does not embrace that conclusion. See post, at —. But it offers no principle that excludes it. Respondent at argument acknowledged that, under her theory, Congress could "probably" convert a substantial number of existing cabinet departments into multimember bodies with for-cause removal protection. Tr. of Oral Arg. 83–84. We need not decide today whether that result would in fact follow. It is enough to observe that the principle on which respondent relies provides no answer to the question — and our cases provide a clear one.

IV

Two further arguments deserve direct response.

A

Respondent argues, and the dissent agrees, that the founding-era multimember bodies undermine the categorical reading of the President's removal power. The First Congress created the Sinking Fund Commission in 1790, with the Chief Justice and Vice President among its members. Act of Aug. 12, 1790, ch. 47, 1 Stat. 186. The same Congress created the Revolutionary War Debt Commission. Act of Aug. 5, 1790, ch. 38, § 1, 1 Stat. 178. The Mint Board followed in 1792. Act of Apr. 2, 1792, ch. 16, § 18, 1 Stat. 246, 250. None of these bodies, respondent argues, allowed for at-will presidential removal of every member. Resp. Br. 13–16.

The history is suggestive but not controlling. As we observed in Collins, the Sinking Fund Commission was composed of five members, three of whom — the Treasury Secretary, Secretary of State, and Attorney General — "were part of the President's Cabinet" and "indisputably removable at will." 594 U. S., at 253 n. 19. The remaining two members held their offices under independent constitutional warrants (the Chief Justice as head of an Article III court; the Vice President as a constitutional officer of separate authority). The Commission's design accordingly does not suggest that the First Congress regarded itself as constitutionally free to insulate executive officers from presidential removal.

More fundamentally, "past practice does not, by itself, create power." Medellín v. Texas, 552 U. S. 491, 532 (2008) (internal quotation marks omitted). The First Congress's most considered statement on the removal power was the "Decision of 1789," recognized in Myers as supplying "contemporaneous and weighty evidence" that the executive power includes the power to remove subordinate officers. Myers, 272 U. S., at 114. This Court has consistently treated that decision as the more authoritative founding-era statement. See Seila Law, 591 U. S., at 214; Free Enterprise Fund, 561 U. S., at 492. The intermittent creation of multimember bodies whose composition required cross-branch participation does not displace what the First Congress, the Decision of 1789, and Myers together established.

B

Respondent next contends that the Government's position is incompatible with the constitutional status of the Federal Reserve System. If the Vesting Clause requires at-will removal of all officers exercising executive power, she argues, the Federal Reserve cannot stand. Resp. Br. 28–29.

The Federal Reserve is not before us today, and we do not decide its constitutional status. We note only that this Court has previously described the Federal Reserve System as a "uniquely structured, quasi-private entity that follows in the distinct historical tradition of the First and Second Banks of the United States." Trump v. Wilcox, 145 S. Ct. 1415, 1415 (2025). Whether that historical tradition supports an exception to the general rule of presidential removal, whether the Federal Reserve's particular structure should be analyzed differently because of its quasi-private character, or whether any such exception extends to particular functions of the Federal Reserve are questions for another day. Nothing in this opinion forecloses any of those inquiries.

The same is true of Wiener v. United States, 357 U. S. 349 (1958), which involved the War Claims Commission — a body whose "intrinsic judicial character" Congress had emphasized by directing it to "adjudicate according to law" and by making its determinations "not subject to review by any other official of the United States or by any court." Id., at 355. The Court inferred from those structural choices a congressional intent to insulate the Commission's members from at-will removal, and held that the inference was constitutionally permissible. Id., at 356. Whether Wiener's holding survives, in whole or in part, in light of this Court's more recent insistence on "very clear and explicit language" to displace the default of at-will removal, see Kennedy v. Braidwood Management, Inc., 606 U. S. 748, ___ (2025) (slip op., at ___), is a question we need not resolve today. Wiener involved a body whose function was, on the Court's own characterization, fundamentally adjudicative — and bodies of that kind, including the Article I courts, present distinct constitutional considerations that are not engaged by the modern FTC.

V

The application of the foregoing principles to this case is straightforward. The modern FTC exercises the executive power. The for-cause removal restriction in 15 U. S. C. § 41 purports to insulate officers exercising that power from removal at the President's discretion. The general rule of Article II is to the contrary. Neither of the two recognized exceptions extends to officers of the modern FTC. The restriction is therefore unconstitutional as applied to respondent.

We are aware that this conclusion implicates removal protections in the statutes governing a number of other agencies that have been understood, on the strength of Humphrey's Executor, to be constitutionally insulated from presidential removal. We have addressed several of them on interim review during this Term. See Trump v. Wilcox, 145 S. Ct. 1415 (2025) (National Labor Relations Board, Merit Systems Protection Board); Trump v. Boyle, 145 S. Ct. 2653 (2025) (Consumer Product Safety Commission). The doctrine articulated today supplies the framework within which those and similar cases will be resolved on their merits when they reach the Court. We do not, however, decide today the constitutional status of any agency other than the FTC. The Federal Reserve, the adjudicative bodies addressed in Wiener, the Article I courts, and the civil service generally are not before us.

We are also aware that Humphrey's Executor has stood for ninety years. The doctrine of stare decisis counsels respect for that pedigree. We have not undertaken to overrule Humphrey's Executor. The holding of that decision rests on the Court's characterization of the 1935 FTC. We hold today only that this characterization does not extend to officers exercising the executive power the modern FTC exercises. To the extent any tension remains "between the decision in the Myers case . . . and our . . . decision that such power does not extend to an office such as that here involved, there shall remain a field of doubt," and cases falling within that field "are left for future consideration and determination as they may arise." Humphrey's Executor, 295 U. S., at 632. That field is narrower than it once seemed. But this Court has had no need, and has none today, to make it disappear.

VI

The remaining question is the appropriate remedy.

The Federal Trade Commission Act contains a severability clause. 15 U. S. C. § 57. Even absent such a clause, "the normal rule is that 'partial invalidation' is 'the required course.'" Free Enterprise Fund, 561 U. S., at 508 (quoting Brockett v. Spokane Arcades, Inc., 472 U. S. 491, 504 (1985)). In Free Enterprise Fund, the Court severed the dual-removal restriction at issue while preserving the underlying agency. 561 U. S., at 509. In Seila Law, the Court likewise severed the CFPB Director's removal protection from the remainder of the Dodd-Frank Act. 591 U. S., at 234–237. We follow the same course here. The for-cause removal restriction in 15 U. S. C. § 41 is severed from the remainder of the Federal Trade Commission Act. The Commission's structure, functions, and authority remain intact. Its Commissioners, like the heads of the executive departments, hold their offices at the pleasure of the President.

Petitioners ask us to go further. They contend that, even if the President's removal of respondent was unlawful under existing law, Article II forbids courts from issuing any remedy — legal or equitable — that would prevent or undo the removal of an executive officer. Pet. Br. 37–47.

We decline to reach that question. Our holding on Question 1 resolves the case. The for-cause restriction in 15 U. S. C. § 41 is unconstitutional as applied to respondent. With the restriction severed, the President's removal of respondent in March 2025 was lawful under the Constitution as construed today. The District Court's reinstatement order rested on a contrary view of the statute and the Constitution, and cannot stand. We need not, and do not, decide whether the District Court's order would have been an appropriate remedy if the removal had been unlawful. That question is left for another day.

Our practice in cases of this kind has been to address only those questions necessary to disposition. See FCC v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U. S. 726, 734 (1978). The remedial question presented in this case — whether Article II categorically forecloses judicial relief restraining the removal of an executive officer — implicates a body of equitable, declaratory, and mandamus precedent stretching back to Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137 (1803), and turns in part on the proper construction of the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, 5 U. S. C. § 1101 et seq. Those issues are weighty, and the briefing has been substantial. We think it the better course to await a case in which the answer to the remedial question is necessary to disposition. This is not that case.

* * *

The Federal Trade Commission was created at a particular moment in the Nation's economic history, to address a particular problem. It has grown well beyond the scope of the agency this Court described in 1935. The constitutional question its modern form presents is the one we have decided today: officers who exercise the executive power of the United States must remain answerable, through the President, to the people whom the executive power serves. The for-cause removal restriction in 15 U. S. C. § 41 stands in the way of that answerability as applied to Commissioners of the modern Federal Trade Commission. It cannot constitutionally be enforced against them.

The judgment of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.