Supreme Court curtails recess appointments

[TGHusker]

To be fair and Balanced:

 

Article from Liberal NY Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/27/us/supreme-court-president-recess-appointments.html

 

The court ruled unanimously that President Obama had violated the Constitution in 2012 by appointing officials to the National Labor Relations Board during a short break in the Senate’s work when the chamber was convening every three days in pro forma sessions. Those breaks were too short, Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote in a majority opinion joined by the court’s four more liberal members.

 

From the Moderate:

http://www.nationaljournal.com/white-house/supreme-court-limits-president-obama-s-appointment-powers-20140626

 

In the view of the Court, as written by Breyer, "pro forma sessions count as sessions, not as periods of recess. We hold that, for purposes of the Recess Appointments Clause, the Senate is in session when it says it is, provided that, under its own rules, it retains the capacity to transact Senate business. The Senate met that standard here."

In his concurrence (which was joined by Roberts, Thomas, and Alito), Scalia makes the case that the Court's opinion was too narrow. Rather than allow presidents to make appointments during breaks 10 days or longer, Scalia, and the Court conservatives who joined his opinion, hold that a "recess" is just the period between two sessions of Congress.

 

From the conservative side:

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/381302/obama-suffers-12th-unanimous-defeat-supreme-court-joel-gehrke

 

Senator Ted Cruz (R., Texas), in arguing that Obama is “lawless,” has kept a tally of the president’s unanimous defeats. ”This marks the twelfth time since January 2012 that the Supreme Court has unanimously rejected the Obama administration’s calls for greater federal executive power,” he pointed out after the release of the recess-appointments ruling.

Cruz issued a report on Obama’s unanimous defeats when the total sat at nine. “If the Department of Justice had won these cases, the federal government would be able to electronically track all of our movements, fine us without a fair hearing, dictate who churches choose as ministers, displace state laws based on the president’s whims, bring debilitating lawsuits against individuals based on events that occurred years ago, and destroy a person’s private property without just compensation,” Cruz wrote in April 2013.

“When President Obama’s own Supreme Court nominees join their colleagues in unanimously rejecting the administration’s call for broader federal power nine times in 18 months, the inescapable conclusion is that the Obama administration’s view of federal power knows virtually no bounds,” he concluded

 

 

It appears the constitutional professor President isn't doing so well with these unanimous decisions. But he did get the big one approved by the SC - ACA.

[lo country]

Bump

[Junior]

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/01/13/obama-lags-his-predecessors-in-recess-appointments/

 

 

While recess appointments have long been used by presidents to at least temporarily fill federal positions, they attract the most attention when they are used to install a nominee who might be otherwise blocked by the Senate. One such politically-charged case is before the Supreme Court today and it could result in sharply curtailing recess appointments in the future.

 

The case is reaching the high court at a time when President Obama has been locked in a bitter fight with Senate Republicans over his nominees, particularly his choices for the judiciary. But while appointments have been a contentious issue during his administration, Obama has resorted to the recess appointment at a far lesser pace than the four presidents before him.

 

But, you know... Obama the tyrant and Reagan the saint.

[LukeinNE]

I'm glad to see this particular power curbed. I'm no Constitutional scholar, but it seems likely to me that the power was originally intended as a sort of stopgap to get vacancies filled while Congress wasn't in session. That makes sense in a time where everything moved much more slowly and Congress couldn't be recalled at a moment's notice. Now it's just turned into "well...the Senate is being a pain on these appointments so I'll just stick'em in when Congress isn't in session," which (imo) is well outside of the power's intended purpose.

[knapplc]

I'm glad to see this particular power curbed. I'm no Constitutional scholar, but it seems likely to me that the power was originally intended as a sort of stopgap to get vacancies filled while Congress wasn't in session. That makes sense in a time where everything moved much more slowly and Congress couldn't be recalled at a moment's notice. Now it's just turned into "well...the Senate is being a pain on these appointments so I'll just stick'em in when Congress isn't in session," which (imo) is well outside of the power's intended purpose.

 

I agree that this is a good ruling, and that a president shouldn't have this kind of power, but we also cannot have a country condemned to stagnation for four/eight years because one of our two political parties simply refuses to work with the other.