Tumble DC 25: Do you care if the President breaks the law?

April 18, 2012

I’m not really a supporter of the President, but it’s clear to me that the GOP obstruction of his appointees is unprecedented and unacceptable. His appointments represented a record level of diversity, and faced unique obstruction. The Republicans in the Senate stopped him from appointing Judges…

Pro Forma sessions aren’t considered sessions for the purpose of preventing the constitutional power of the President.

Historically, the recess appointments clause has been given a practical interpretation. As Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist No. 67, the clause enables the president to keep the government fully staffed when the Senate is not “in session for the appointment of officers.”

In a 1905 report that the Senate still considers authoritative, the Senate Judiciary Committee recognized that a “Recess of the Senate” occurs whenever the Senate is not sitting for the discharge of its functions and when it cannot “participate as a body in making appointments.” The committee cautioned that a “recess” means “something actual, not something fictitious.” The executive branch has long taken the same common-sense view. In 1921, citing opinions of his predecessors dating back to the Monroe administration, Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty argued that the question “is whether in a practical sense the Senate is in session so that its advice and consent can be obtained. To give the word ‘recess’ a technical and not a practical construction, is to disregard substance for form.”

(via politicalprof)

11:17am | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZmCeYyJt8Yfj

(Notes: 44)