TAGS: memorial day
Obama Recess Appointments
By:Philip Klein05/26/11 7:51 PM - Senior editorial writer Follow Him @Philipaklein.
http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/2011/05/no-recess-appointments-obama-during-upcoming-break
President Obama will not be able to make recess appointments over the week-long break to commemorate Memorial Day, after Republicans forced Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to keep the chamber open for pro forma sessions every three days.
“President Obama has been packing federal agencies with left-wing ideologues, but thankfully he won’t be able to for at least the next week," Sen. Jim DeMint, R-SC, said in a statement emailed to the Examiner. "The House will not be sending an adjournment resolution to the Senate, we will remain in pro forma session, and no controversial nominees will be allowed to circumvent the confirmation process during the break.”
On Wednesday, Sens. DeMint and David Vitter, R-La., along with 18 other Republican Senators, sent a letter to House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Oh., calling on the House to block President Obama from making any recess appointments.
Under the U.S. Constitution, neither chamber can adjourn unless a majority in both chambers agrees to it.
Also adding to the pressure was Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., who has been saying all week that he would not agree to a unanimous consent request to allow the Senate to adjourn. He turned up the heat on Thursday with a letter, signed by all 47 Republican Senators including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., backing him up. This would have forced Democrats to vote to adjourn at a time when they hadn't yet passed a budget.
GOP concerns became elevated as the week-long Memorial Day recess approached with Democrats and liberal activists agitating for Obama to use the break as a pretext to plant Elizabeth Warren on the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which was created by last year's financial regulatory legislation.
Conversations with Republican staff on the Senate side indicated that the House forced Reid's hand by making it clear that they would not agree to an adjournment resolution, although the House leadership itself was cagey when asked to confirm if that was the case.
"The Senate did not pass an adjournment resolution," Michael Steel, spokesman for Speaker John Boehner, R-Oh., said in an email. He would not elaborate further.
Whatever the case, the result is that the Senate will hold pro forma sessions on May 27th, May 31st, and June 3rd, thus blocking recess appointments.
When Democrats took over Congress in 2007, Reid blocked Bush from making any recess appointments by holding such sessions, which could last as little as a few seconds, with the clerk opening the chamber and a Senator striking a gavel to close it.
While the Constitution specifies no minimum number of days required for a recess appointment, a March 2010 Congressional Research Service report referenced a Clinton-era Justice Department brief suggesting it was more than three days.
The CRS report also noted that "(a)lthough President Theodore Roosevelt once made recess appointments during an intra-session recess of less than one day, the shortest recess during which appointments have been made over the past 20 years was 10 days."
No comments:
Post a Comment