Do you remember when President Obama made appointments to the National Labor Relations Board while the Senate was still technically in session? Well, a lawsuit was filed and the case came before a federal appeals court today. The judges questioned not only the NLRB appointments, but all of Obama’s recess appointments.
The case involves a challenge to Mr.
Obama’s recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board in
early January — during a time when the Senate was holding pro forma
sessions every three days, specifically for the purposes of denying him
the chance to make those appointments.
Mr. Obama argued that since the full
Senate wasn’t actually meeting regularly, lawmakers were technically in
an intra-session “recess” and he could use his constitutional power to
make appointments not needing the chamber’s consent. But two judges on
the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit questioned not only that
move, but every recess appointment made other than during a traditional
inter-session recesses that close out each year.
“Once you remove yourself from the
principles set forth in the Constitution — inter-session versus
intra-session — you are adrift,” said Judge Thomas B. Griffith.
He was joined in his pointed questioning
by Chief Judge David B. Sentelle, who said the clause in the
Constitution giving presidents recess appointment powers refers to “the
recess,” which he said suggests the one at the end of each year, not the
breaks Congress regularly takes for holidays, weekends or other
reasons.
Read More: www.lonelyconservative.com
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