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Posted on 01/05/2012 9:22:22 AM PST by Libloather
What is a recess? Constitution doesn't specify
By ALAN FRAM
Associated Press
Updated: Jan 05, 2012 10:32 AM EST
(AP) - The Constitution lets presidents make temporary appointments while the Senate is in recess but does not specify what a recess is or how long one must last before that power can be exercised.
That ambiguity, courtesy of the founding fathers, is helping fuel a battle between President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans over whether he had legally installed Richard Cordray on Wednesday to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, along with three others he named to the National Labor Relations Board.
**SNIP**
Late in Republican George W. Bush's presidency, the Democratic-led Senate began to punctuate its breaks with non-business sessions, preventing Bush from making any recess appointments from November 2007 through the end of his term, according to a December report by Congress' nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.
That report said the Department of Justice has offered varying views over the years about how long lawmakers must be away before a recess appointment may be made. But in 1993 under President Bill Clinton, a Justice brief implied that a president can make a recess appointment if a break by the Senate lasts more than three days, the CRS report said.
(Excerpt) Read more at wmctv.com ...
Lawyer talk.
The recess appointment wasn’t put in place as a tool to allow the executive branch to circumvent the legislative branch. It was put in, because, originally, the expectation was that the legislative branch would not be in session year round, and in fact be “on recess and unavilable to approve appointments” for months at a time.
But, of course, the lawyers get involved and screw up the original intent.
The solution is simple: modify the constitution to allow the Senate to reject any recess appointments via a 60% vote when they come back into session. This preserves the check and balanance originally in the constitutuion.
If you ever watch C-Span you would believe that they are always in recess. There is almost never anyone on the floor.
Looks like Obama’s interpretation is that a recess can be as simple as going to lunch or a potty break.
The Democrats started the recent idiocy by announcing that the Senate would not assemble to do business, but it was also not on recess. Each three days there would be a 30 to 60 second "opening" with one member present, and somehow THIS pro forma charade was preventing the president from making a recess appointment.
Now the Democrats are ending their own idiocy by announcing that pro forma sessions do not amount to a cessation of recess.
I like Santorum but it’s gonna take a Newt Gingrich to roll everything back pre FDR.
If we can just get Newt in then the only way that he could be prevented from restoring a constitutional republic is impeachment...he has already indicated he will not be constrained by the courts.
At this late date we require a pissed off bull in the china shop to fix this mess. I can see no other avenue of escape. Can you?
To sum it up: Bush respected a ‘fair reading’ of the US Constitution while Obama (with help from the Media) looks for ‘cracks’ to slip through.
The Media would be howling if Bush had done this. The Dems would have started impeachment hearings. Which is what the House Republicans should be doing.
Congressional Republicans know they already lost this fight. It's going no-place. What is their plans for the FICA tax cut battle?
Obumo’s intent is to circumvent congress pure and simple.
He will keep doing this in one manner or another until he is impeached. Listening to lawyers arguing nuances at this stage is akin to debating proper tire air pressure at a 20 car pileup.
Their are weak sister Members of that Body who will tell you they can't do this or that, because of this or that charter, semi-autonomy, etc., etc., but said charters and semi-autonomy was and is a creature of Congress going out the gate, and they can, without question, defund, desolve, de-office anyone under the imprimatur of the United States.
When they try to tell you "we can't" what they are saying is "we don't have the votes."
Obama seems to revel in his own peculiar ghetto interpretation of the Constitution.
(BTW Obama, if you ever read this, it is not a compliment.)
This is how totalitarians steal our freedoms. When they're allowed to blur the definitions of simple words, our Constitution can mean anything they want it to, and despots can usurp whatever powers they like.
All Hail The Emperor!
The Constitution DOES IMPLICITLY specify what is a Congressional “recess”
by EXPLICITLY ENUMERATING that the rules of the Houses of Congress - which would include how they declare themselves to be in session or not - are the exclusive prerogative of Congress and no one else.
If Congress, or either house of Congress, decides it is “in session” and not in recess, neither the Judiciary nor the Executive can deny it; it is not their ruling to make.
If the SCOTUS would not support Congress on this, it would be denying the explicit enumeration to Congress alone, the Constitutional powers to make, and say what are, the rules of the Houses of Congress.
What Congressional rules, as set by Congress, would a President next deny the authority of?
The Constitution does not grant the executive powers over the Congress to either write, alter or declare to be in force or not in force the rules that the Houses of Congress have set for themselves, which includes any rules as to how they declare, or fail to declare, themselves to be in recess or not.
Obama should be impeached.
To openly defy the Constitution constitutes the “highest crime” a President could commit.
Per Article 2 of the Constitution, the Senate makes its own rules. Current rules say the Senate was not in recess. Rules changes can be filibustered.
“I like Santorum but it’s gonna take a Newt Gingrich to roll everything back pre FDR.”
Something Mark Levin said last year that stuck in my (so called) brain, (I paraphrase) “It’s taken us 80 years to get to this place, and it’s going to take that long to get us out.”
Point being this is not a one or two election project, and just electing someone to the Presidency is not by it’s self the answer. You have to think more holistically (and I can’t believe I just used that word), Congress, governors, state legislatures, teachers, reporters,...etc.
Obama should be impeached.
Good luck with that!
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