Privacy & Information Security Law Blog

On November 17, 2025, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) announced that FTC Commissioner Melissa Holyoak has resigned her post, bringing the total number of vacant FTC commissioner seats to three.

In simultaneous press releases, the FTC and the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Utah announced Ms. Holyoak’s resignation from the FTC and her appointment as Interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Utah. The FTC, an agency meant to have five commissioners (with no more than three from the same political party), now has only two commissioners, both of whom are Republicans.

Ms. Holyoak’s resignation follows President Trump’s earlier firings of two Democratic commissioners. In March 2025, President Trump fired Rebecca Kelly Slaughter and fellow Democratic commissioner Alvaro Bedoya. Both challenged their dismissals in court, but Bedoya ultimately resigned from his position. On September 22, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court granted President Trump’s emergency application for a stay of a lower court’s order that had reinstated Ms. Slaughter as a commissioner.