Posted on 02/03/2012 10:50:14 AM PST by jazusamo
Republican senators announced Friday that they plan to challenge President Obama's recent controversial appointments in court.
Thirty-nine GOP senators have signed onto a letter announcing their intention to file a joint amicus brief in a court challenge against Obama's recess appointments to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the National Labor Relations Board last month.
"We refuse to stand by as this President arrogantly casts aside our Constitution and defies the will of the American people under the election-year guise of defending them," Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said in a statement.
The White House has argued that the recess appointments were legal because the Senate's pro forma sessions, in which a lone senator typically bangs the gavel once every three days, count as the chamber being in recess. Republican lawmakers disagree and say that the pro forma sessions do mean the Senate is in session and so no appointments could be made.
The court challenge with which the senators plan to file the brief has not been chosen yet.
Every senator should be challenging this, since it is an encroachment on senate power.
Next thing you know, they'll be claiming debt is the same as prosperity.
After the caucuses here, I'm dropping my Republican affiliation. These clowns are an embarrassment.
Yes, every Senator should be fighting this usurping of Senate power by the arrogant Marxist in the WH.
Maybe 1 day in the future we will finally get some conservatives in the Senate. Maybe Col Allan West can be convinced to run for congress instead of the RINO Connie Mack. He Mc Lost and Graham are even slightly conservative.
Florida please do not vote for Mack he does not even live in Florida him and his wife live in DC full time or is it California???????
Wasnt Charlie Crist and Le Meuix bad enough for you?
"Yeah! We're sorta kinda maybe perhaps file an appeal in some case we haven't yet decided to pursue." A true Profile in Courage!
I’ll believe it when I see it. Most are too afraid to be called “racists” for challenging the poser in chief.
That’s nice if you like symbolism, but they should play hardball. Congress should immediately cut all funding to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the National Labor Relations Board. They should keep the funding at zero until the unconstitutional appointments are canceled. Why is that hard for politicians?
Actually they should not even have to do the three day thing. The House and Senate are the only ones who can say if they are or are not in session or in recess. They get to set their own rules. What O did is unconstitutional, period.
so when this finally winds its way through all of the appeals five years from now they can wag their finger at Obama and tell him “you were a bad, bad boy”.
Including things such as a 20% vote is a majority, and a 1% presence is a quorum? I mean, I know they SAY they are in session (which implies a quorum is present), but are they really in session?
Reid was wrong when he did it (ran fake sessions, by calling a nearly empty chamber a session), and now the Republicans are saying it was okay. Nonsense on stilts. Oh well, it's one place where the Republicans and Democrats are in complete agreement - non-sessions are sessions.
Anyoine have a list of the senators who signed ?
Haven’t found a list yet but here’s a pdf link to letter with the signatures.
http://images.politico.com/global/2012/02/senate_gop_amicus_intent_letter_3_feb_12.pdf
The Constitution is the Constitution, they get to set the rules of thier chamber.
Additionally an adjorunment is not a recess
There are 100 Senators in Congress and every last one of them should be signed on to this usurpation of power.
This should be bi-partisan.
My question was whether or not that power admits them to say an absence of quorum is the same as a presence of quorum.
I thought Reid was making nonsense with this practice while Bush was president, and it (claiming absence of quorum amounts to being in session) is nonsense when the Republicans claim it, too.
A legislative body has certain organic properties. One of them is that a number of them less than a quorum is unable to conduct business. In this case, the body is not even trying to make a quorum - it is, instead, expressly avoiding one.
I have an issue with the president exercising the recess appointment power for vacancies that did not occur during the recess; but that practice is long-standing, in part due to the dysfunction of the Senate in timely acting on nominees.
The House should be defunding these positions. Let them work for free. That will last about 15 minutes.
Pro-forma sessions are as old as the Republic itself. One chamber can’t adjourn for more than three days without consent of the other chamber. It’s a constitutional requirement.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.