For nearly a century, the bureaucracy has pretended it runs the country. Presidents come and go, but the “career” officials — the ones who slow-walk, leak, and “interpret” — remain. Now, a case brewing in the courts threatens to undo all that, and Washington’s permanent class is panicking.
At issue is the President’s power to fire. Not just Cabinet secretaries or ambassadors — everyone. The Supreme Court’s conservative wing, led by Chief Justice Roberts, has been inching toward a return to the idea that “the executive Power shall be vested in a President,” period. No asterisks, no unaccountable boards, no lifetime bureaucrats deciding which orders they’ll obey. The Left is calling it a coup. The Right calls it the Constitution.
In Seila Law v. CFPB (2020), Roberts said the President must have authority over anyone who wields executive power. It’s an idea older than FDR, older than Humphrey’s Executor (1935) — the New Deal relic that first carved out “independent agencies.” But the academic class is now nervous. Caleb Nelson, writing for the Democracy Project, warns that unchecked removal power could create a “tyrannical disposition.” Translation: they trusted Washington with that power, just not Trump.
Meanwhile, Raw Story and The New York Times are spinning the same alarm: a “unitary executive” could unleash “authoritarian purges” of the civil service. What they don’t say is that these agencies, from the EPA to the DOJ, already act like self-perpetuating governments. If the President can’t fire the people who ignore him, who’s really in charge?
The fight comes down to a simple question: do Americans elect their rulers, or are they ruled by appointees who outlast elections? The Constitution says the former. The establishment prefers the latter. And that’s why they call returning power to the voters “dangerous.”
When this case reaches the Roberts Court, the ruling could mark the end of the administrative state as we know it — or expose how deeply it’s already entrenched. Either way, the deep state knows what’s at stake. For the first time in a long time, it might finally have to answer to the guy voters actually chose.
Citations
- The Democracy Project – “Must Administrative Officers Serve at the President’s Pleasure?” (Oct 2025)
- Raw Story – “Trump Plan to Defy Humphrey’s Executor Spurs Panic Among Bureaucrats” (Oct 2025)
- The New York Times – “The Originalist Bombshell That Could Reshape Executive Power” (Oct 2025)
- SCOTUSblog – “The Legacy of Humphrey’s Executor v. United States” (Background)
- Heritage Foundation – “Seila Law and the Future of the Unitary Executive” (Analysis)