Obama Threatens Bypass Of Constitution With “Recess Appointments”?

Obama Threatens Bypass Of Constitution With “Recess Appointments”?
By Julie Smith on February 13, 2010, 9:01 am

In what amounts to a political street fight, the Senate Republican minority has pushed Obama hard in its rebuke of the nomination of Craig Becker. Becker, a pro-labor nominee to the NRLB, saw his nomination come to a screeching halt last Tuesday. Republicans, joined by conservative Democrats, defeated an effort to allow the nomination process to move forward. Now the administration is pushing back, indicating a willingness to consider a recess appointment to place Becker at the NRLB and bypass a Senate confirmation vote.


Tit For Tat
Such appointments are not out of the ordinary. Facing stiff Democratic opposition, George W. Bush used a recess appointment to place John Bolton as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in 2005 after a grueling five month long nomination process. Bush used recess appointments over 170 times during his presidency. While this might raise eyebrows, it should be noted that Bill Clinton made 139 recess appointments during his 8 year tenure.

Time Is On Your Side
The only caveat to making a recess appointment is that eventually the appointee will have to come up for confirmation in the Senate. The Constitution indicates that such an appointment is valid only until the next Senate session ends. In modern times, this usually amounts to a period of up to two years. So it looks like Becker will get a free pass and be seated at the NLRB for quite some time before he actually is confirmed. He can also take comfort in that the Senate rarely rejects confirmation at the end of the nominee’s tenure as a recess appointee.


What might throw a monkey wrench into Obama’s carefully laid out plan is the 2010 mid-term elections. Just suppose Republicans make major gains. That would place any recess appointees facing an uphill battle for confirmation yet again.


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This is not "change we can believe in"