By Dietrich Knauth
NEW YORK (Reuters) -A divided U.S. appeals court on Tuesday allowed Democratic U.S. Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter to resume her role at the agency, despite Republican President Donald Trump's effort to remove her from office.
In a 2-1 decision, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals allowed a lower court decision in favor of Slaughter to go into effect, rejecting the Trump administration's request to delay the ruling during its appeal.
The court said that FTC commissioners
may not be fired by a president without cause, adding that the law on that point has been clear for nearly a century.
"The government is not likely to succeed on appeal because any ruling in its favor from this court would have to defy binding, on-point, and repeatedly preserved Supreme Court precedent," two judges wrote in the majority opinion.
A third judge, Trump appointee Neomi Rao, dissented, saying that federal courts likely have no authority "to order the reinstatement of an officer removed by the President."
Slaughter's attorneys and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
A federal judge ruled in July that the Trump administration's attempt to remove Slaughter did not comply with removal protections in federal law.
The FTC enforces consumer protection and antitrust laws, and has a bipartisan structure where no more than three of the five commissioners can come from the same party. Congress placed restrictions on the hiring and firing of commissioners in an effort to insulate the agency from partisan politics.
Trump fired both Democratic commissioners on the FTC in March, in a major test for the independence of regulatory agencies.
The dispute over Trump's firing of Slaughter and fellow commissioner Alvaro Bedoya in March will likely end up before the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled 90 years ago that FTC commissioners may be dismissed only for good cause, such as neglecting their duties. Bedoya formally resigned in June to take another job and is not part of the case.
(Reporting by Dietrich Knauth in New York and Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Leslie Adler and Nia Williams)
