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In a recent interview, Justice Amy Coney Barrett shared her view that “originalism became prominent as a theory” as a counterweight to the theory of “living constitutionalism” that “had become dominant” during the courts led by Chief Justices Earl Warren and Warren Burger. According to Barrett, whereas the living constitutionalism of the Warren-Burger eras put the court in the position of functionally amending the Constitution by updating its meaning, originalism instead aims to understand “how those who ratified the Constitution understood the words.”

Updated on Dec. 8 at 5:05 p.m.

The Supreme Court on Monday morning signaled that it was likely to strike down a federal law that restricts the president’s ability to fire members of the Federal Trade Commission. During two and a half hours of argument in the case of Trump v. Slaughter, a solid majority of the justices appeared to agree with the Trump administration that a law prohibiting the president from firing FTC commissioners except in cases of “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office” violates the constitutional separation of powers between the three branches of government. And although several justices expressed skepticism about a 90-year-old case, Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, upholding that law, it was less clear that there was a majority ready to overrule it.

A decision in favor of the Trump administration would significantly increase the president’s power over not only the FTC but roughly two dozen other multi-member agencies that Congress intended to be independent. President Donald Trump has also fired members of the National Labor Relations Board, the Merit Systems Protection Board, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission. The Supreme Court has already allowed those firings to take effect in proceedings on its interim docket, but the court’s ruling in the case of FTC commissioner Rebecca Slaughter will provide a more definitive ruling on the legality of those firings.

Oral arguments in Trump v. Slaughter, on the president’s authority to fire the heads of independent, multi-member federal agencies, have concluded, but the conversation isn’t over. Listen now to a special live broadcast of the Advisory Opinions podcast to reflect on what the justices said and what could happen next.

Advisory Opinions host Sarah Isgur is joined by SCOTUSblog’s Amy Howe, David French, and Adam White.

We were live as the court heard oral arguments in Trump v. Slaughter.

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The Supreme Court on Friday afternoon added four new cases to its argument docket for the 2025-26 term. In a brief list of orders from the justices’ private conference earlier in the day, the court agreed to weigh in on one of the challenges to President Donald Trump’s order ending birthright citizenship (covered in a separate story).