This market is about whether the US Supreme Court will rule that the President can fire the head of an independent regulatory agency at will.

## description

Donald Trump's administration is pushing to assert executive control over independent federal agencies (**sigh ...**).

This case is one of the most critical of the SCOTUS term ending in June 2026. The market predicts if the conservative majority will expand executive power by ruling that the President has the constitutional authority to fire the chair of the SEC or FTC at will, overturning decades of legal precedent.

## Rules and resolution

The market is binary/boolean (YES/NO). It closes on August 1, 2026 at 23:59 UTC.

For the market to resolve to YES, the Supreme Court of the United States must issue a ruling in the current term (before August 1, 2026) declaring that statutory protections limiting the President's power to remove the head of the FTC, SEC, or a similarly structured independent commission only "for cause" are unconstitutional, thereby granting the President at-will removal power over them (making these independent regulatory agencies not really independent, giving the President massively increased power)

If the Court rules that such protections are constitutional, dismisses the case without deciding the constitutional question, or if no such ruling is issued by the deadline, the market resolves to NO.

## resolution details and edge cases

Here are the specific rules and edge cases for resolving this market:

1. Holding of the majority:

* We will look at the official syllabus and the holding of the majority opinion of the Supreme Court.
* If the majority holding states that the statutory restriction on the removal of the agency head is unconstitutional, the market resolves to YES.
* Concurring opinions that argue for at-will removal do not count unless they are part of the binding majority holding.

2. Scope of the ruling:

* The ruling does not need to apply to all independent agencies. If the Court rules that the President can fire the head of the FTC at will, but leaves the SEC's structure alone (or vice versa), the market still resolves to YES.
* As long as at-will removal power is granted for at least one independent agency head who previously had statutory "good cause" or "for cause" removal protections, it counts as YES.

3. Narrow or procedural rulings:

* If the Court decides the case on procedural grounds (such as standing) or sends it back to lower courts without ruling on the constitutionality of the removal restrictions, the market resolves to NO.
* If the Court rules that the agency's actions are invalid for other reasons but does not declare the removal restrictions unconstitutional, it resolves to NO.

4. Postponements: If the Court postpones the case to the next term or has not issued a decision by August 1, 2026, the market resolves to NO.

5. Verification sources: We will resolve this based on the official slip opinions published on the Supreme Court website (supremecourt.gov), the Oyez database, and analysis from reputable legal news outlets (such as SCOTUSblog).

6. I won't bet on this.