President Donald Trump just notched a consequential win over the administrative state. In a short order issued by Chief Justice John Roberts, the Supreme Court blocked a lower-court ruling that had put Democratic Federal Trade Commission member Rebecca Kelly Slaughter back in her seat while her lawsuit played out. Practically, that means Slaughter’s ouster remains in effect as the case proceeds. Politically and legally, it signals the justices may be ready to take a sledgehammer to one of the oldest shackles on presidential control of the executive branch.

Here’s the fight in plain English. For nearly a century—ever since the 1935 case Humphrey’s Executor—Congress has insulated certain regulators (like the FTC) by letting presidents remove commissioners only “for cause” (think neglect of duty or malfeasance), not for policy or political differences. Trump moved this year to remove Slaughter (and initially Alvaro Bedoya, who later dropped his challenge), prompting lower courts to say the president can’t do that. Monday’s stay puts those rulings on ice.

Stays don’t decide the ultimate question, but they do tell you how the Court is leaning. And the lean is obvious. Over the last decade, the Court has steadily dismantled special protections for powerful regulators that exercise executive power: the PCAOB in Free Enterprise Fund, the CFPB director in Seila Law, and restrictions tied to the FHFA in Collins v. Yellen. Each time, the majority emphasized a basic Article II principle: If officers wield executive authority, the president must be able to supervise—and, when necessary, remove—them.

The FTC is the next test case, and it’s a big one. Unlike a single-director bureau, the FTC is a five-member commission with staggered terms and a bipartisan cap, the classic “independent” model. Its defenders say that structure keeps antitrust and consumer-protection decisions above partisan fray. The Trump administration counters that the agency prosecutes cases, issues rules, and makes policy—quintessential executive functions. If the president owns those outcomes at the ballot box, he must be able to hire and fire the people producing them.

That framing likely resonated with the Court’s conservative bloc, which has grown leery of lower courts using injunctions to freeze nationwide executive actions and of Congress outsourcing major policy to semi-insulated boards. The Roberts order didn’t elaborate, as is customary with emergency relief, but granting the stay means the majority saw a strong likelihood the administration will prevail—or at least that letting the lower-court rulings stand would cause serious institutional harm.

What happens next? Slaughter’s case will move on the merits in the D.C. Circuit and, almost inevitably, boomerang back to the Supreme Court for a final say. If the justices use that opportunity to narrow or overturn Humphrey’s Executor, presidents of both parties will gain much sharper tools to align commissions with their elected agendas. Expect ripple effects at other multi-member bodies: the National Labor Relations Board, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, and beyond.

There may be limits. Even recent opinions nibbling away at removal protections have hinted the Federal Reserve sits in a category of its own—an odd hybrid with a unique statutory and historical pedigree. But that carve-out, if it exists, won’t save the bulk of the modern regulatory state from a constitutional re-tuning.

For the FTC specifically, the stakes are immediate. The agency has been pursuing aggressive competition and consumer-protection theories under its current leadership. If the White House can replace commissioners who resist its program, the Commission’s direction can swing quickly—on merger policy, rulemaking, privacy initiatives, and enforcement priorities. The tidy bipartisan balance Washington likes to tout would become more like other cabinet-level departments: the president sets the course, and the principals either execute or exit.

Critics will call that politicization. Supporters will call it accountability. Either way, the Supreme Court just showed it’s willing to let the president steer—at least while the larger constitutional argument heads for a decisive showdown.