Free Republic

Should Follow The Eisenhower Precedence New Jersey judge William J. Brennan was appointed to the Supreme Court by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956 through a recess appointment. This was done in part with an eye on the presidential campaign that year; On September 7, 1956, Sherman Minton announced his intent to retire in a letter to President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and he served until October 15, 1956. Now Eisenhower was running for reelection, and his advisors thought it would be politically advantageous to place a northeastern Catholic on the court. With the Senate already adjourned, Eisenhower made a...

Ronald Reagan made nearly 250 recess appointments during his time in office. Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush made dozens each. George W. Bush made 171, and Barack Obama notched 32. President Trump, meanwhile, stands at a big zero. No other president has gone this deep into an administration without making a recess appointment. In fact, he is poised to become the first president never to get one — save William Henry Harrison, who died just one month into office.Recess appointments are one of the more arcane presidential powers, but analysts said the breakdown of the process is emblematic of...

Think October 29th, President Trump using recess appointment to install Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court. He could be on the court for up to two years. This appears to be allowed by the Constitution.

President Obama will have one last chance to force Judge Merrick Garland onto the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday — but it’s a legal gamble and one that has so many pitfalls that even those who say he could get away with it believe it isn’t worth the fight. Mr. Obama’s moment will come just before noon, in the five minutes that the Senate gavels the 114th Congress out of session and the time the 115th Congress begins. In those few moments the Senate will go into what’s known as an “intersession recess,” creating one golden moment when the president...

Probably not. So he needs to decide how he wants to pressure Republicans. He has several options. President Obama has promised to uphold his "constitutional responsibility" to nominate a replacement for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, a conservative stalwart who died over the weekend. Now, he just needs to decide whether to try to soften Republican senators with the pick or make it a full-throated, election-year political statement. Numerous Senate Republicans have already said they will not confirm a new Supreme Court justice before this fall's presidential elections. Given that the new appointment could tilt the court's balance of power...

I’m surprised. Since when does President Overreach demurely pass on a bold show of executive power in favor of consultation with Congress — especially when Republican senators are vowing to block anyone he sends to them? McConnell will see to it that the Senate doesn’t recess for the rest of the year, no matter how many “pro forma sessions” that requires, in order to deny O an opportunity for a recess appointment. Minor footnote, though: The Senate is in recess right now. It began on February 12, a day before Justice Scalia passed away, and isn’t set to end until...

Senator Schumer appeared Sunday on ABC's This Week and responded to suggestions that the Senate might not confirm the lame-duck President's nomination to replace the late Justice Scalia: "show me the clause [in the Constitution] that says [the] president's only president for three years." True, Presidents serve four-year terms. But here's a question for Senator Schumer: Can you show me the clause that says the Senate must vote on, let alone confirm, a President's nominee? I'll save him the effort: There is no such clause in the Constitution

COULD OBAMA MAKE A RECESS APPOINTMENT TO REPLACE SCALIA?: The answer appears to be yes because (once again), the GOP-controlled Senate voluntarily has left itself vulnerable to the exercise of such presidential power. Article II, section 2 of the Constitution gives the President power to fill vacancies “during the recess of the Senate”: The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.

Three cheers for right-wing obstructionism. Can we have more, please, and louder? This week's unanimous Supreme Court ruling on President Obama's illegal recess appointments is a double smackdown. First, it's a rebuke against arrogant White House power-grabbers who thought they could act with absolute impunity and interminable immunity. Second, the ruling is a reproach of all the establishment pushovers on Capitol Hill who put comity above constitutional principle. In a nutshell: The high court determined that Obama lawlessly exceeded his executive authority when he foisted three members onto the National Labor Relations Board in 2012, during what Democrats declared was...

The US Supreme Court today limited a president's power to make recess appointments when the White House and the Senate are controlled by opposite parties, scaling back a presidential authority as old as the republic.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court has limited a president's power to make temporary appointments to fill high-level government jobs. The court said Thursday that President Barack Obama exceeded his authority when he invoked the Constitution's provision on recess appointments to fill slots on the National Labor Relations Board in 2012.

In the coming days, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case of Noel Canning versus the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). This case arose when President Obama made several so-called recess appointments to the Board on January 4, 2012 when the Senate was not formally in recess. This landmark case is expected to determine how much leeway the President has to make appointments without Senate confirmation, and more significantly, it will have serious implications on the broader powers of the presidency itself and the system of checks and balances. The United States Court of Appeals for...

Union bosses have an air of entitlement among themselves nowadays. Over the past two election cycles, organized labor has collectively spent hundreds of millions dollars electing President Obama and like-minded Congressmen and Senators. For their efforts, they have come to expect a sizable return on investment. And for the most part, their every wish, no matter how absurd, has been granted by the president himself. Since Big Labor helped President Obama pass his signature healthcare legislation, union bosses have been pushing to receive an exemption from the very same law. The hypocrisy is striking, which is perhaps why the...

A third federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that President Obama violated the Constitution last year when he made recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board, adding more weight to the case as it goes before the Supreme Court in the justices’ next session. The Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 decision, said that the president can only make recess appointments after Congress has adjourned “sine die,” which in modern times has meant when it breaks at the end of each year.

Reid To Hold Cloture Vote On Hagel At 4:15 EST IGOR BOBIC 3:16 PM EST, THURSDAY FEBRUARY 14, 2013 The Senate will hold a cloture vote on the nomination of Chuck Hagel as secretary of defense at 4:15pm ET on Thursday, Majority Leader Harry Reid announced. The move would end debate and move to a final vote on confirmation. Several Republican senators, including Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC), said they plan to vote against cloture this week in order to allow more time to review Hagel's record. They indicated that they would move to end debate, even...

President Obama violated the Constitution when he bypassed the Senate to fill vacancies on a labor relations panel, a federal appeals court panel ruled Friday. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said that Obama did not have the power to make three recess appointments last year to the National Labor Relations Board. The unanimous decision is an embarrassing setback for the president, who made the appointments after Senate Republicans spent months blocking his choices for an agency they contended was biased in favor of unions. The ruling also throws into question Obama's recess...

(CNSNews.com) - The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled today that if the word “the” in the U.S. Constitution carries its customary meaning—which the court forcefully affirmed it does—than President Barack Obama violated the Constitution and usurped power from Congress by appointing persons to federal office without securing the constitutionally required consent of the Senate. On Jan. 4, 2012, Obama unilaterally named three people to the National Labor Relations Board (NRLB). The Senate—by a unanimous agreement of all 100 senators—had said that it was in fact still in session that day and not in the recess....

A new U.S. regulator Tuesday had harsh words for banks and other firms at the center of a mortgage-servicing mess involving shoddy record-keeping and foreclosure abuses, proving that fixing widespread problems will be a top priority in the months ahead. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray, in a speech Tuesday, announced a package of rules the agency is considering that could soon require mortgage servicing firms, led by Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC), Bank of America Corp. (BAC), J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (JPM) and Citigroup Inc. (C), to reach out aggressively to delinquent borrowers, warn them about coming...

The Department of Justice offered a defense on Thursday for President Obama’s controversial decision to make several recess appointments while Congress was in pro forma sessions. In a memo, Justice argued the pro-forma sessions held every third day in the Senate do not constitute a functioning body that can render advice and consent on the president’s nominees. It said the president acted consistently under the law by making the appointments.

GOP: Could Obama make a recess appointment overnight or on weekend?By Pete Kasperowicz - 01/06/12 03:01 PM ET Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is asking the Obama administration whether recess appointments overnight and on the weekend are possible after the president's decision this week to appoint four federal officials despite pro forma sessions by Congress. In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, Grassley and seven other Republican senators on Friday pressed the Obama administration for more details about its decision to make the controversial recess appointments. Grassley's letter said the White House broke with 90 years of precedent on Wednesday...