Rob Port
SayAnythingBlog
1/12/2012
Over the holidays President Obama enraged many on the right with controversial appointments of Richard Cordray to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and three new members of National Labor Relations Board. The Senate was kept in pro-forma session throughout the holidays, gaveling in every three days to prevent a formal recess, and the House of Representatives never voted to go into recess, which is a Constitutional requirement for the Senate to be in recess.
But the Obama administration dismissed these legal technicalities, arguing that the Senate was effectively in recess, thus giving a window for the appointments. And, conveniently enough, Obama’s own Justice Department has tried to manufacture the legal justification for his actions…
…The problem? Well, a former member of Obama’s Justice Department (who Obama has now appointed to the Supreme Court), once argued in a letter to the Supreme Court that these sort of pro-forma sessions actually met constitutional muster to preclude recess appointments…
Read the entire article at SayAnythingBlog.
Update: Grassley: GOP must fight Obama recess appointment power grab
President Barack Obama has created a constitutional showdown by trying to announce recess appointments when the Senate is not in recess, Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley told The Daily Caller.
“It would be a compromise of Senate confirmation power just by precedent if he gets away with with it,” Grassley said in a Jan. 11 interview. “That’s why we can’t let him get away with it.”
Grassley angrily challenged the legality of Obama’s appointments, saying, “Are we a government based on the rule of law? Is the Constitution supposed to be followed or is it supposed to be ignored?”
But, Grassley cautioned, the GOP would have to proceed carefully, and will likely have to wait for a judicial intervention…
