Obama Threatens Bypass Of Constitution With “Recess Appointments”?
By Julie Smith on February 13, 2010, 9:01 amIn 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.
Related posts:
- Obama’s Becker Appointment To NLRB Another Pawn In The Union’s Pocket
- Obama Can’t Find TSA Leader That’s Not Corrupt Or Under Investigation
- Unemployment Extension: Senate Pushes Back Jobless Bill Maybe 2 Weeks
- Unemployment Extension Not Important – Senate Turns To Emissions Bill
- Can Obama Turn Things Around In November For The Democrats
Becker is not the guy we need making decisions during a period of high unemployment. He is anti-business. Bad move by Obama, who knows exactly what he is doing.
The president has no respect for our constitution. That is public record, so it should be no surprise that he would bypass the constitution, for any reason. He has ignored it already and now is making it public, again, that he has no respect for it. It is the same lack of respect that allows him to hire his own cabinet, the czars, in preparation for becomeing the dictator that he is aiming for!
The headline of this article is inflammatory and ridiculously wrong. How can Obama “bypass” the Constitution, when as the article points out recess appointments are provided for in the Constitution?
And certainly the most egregious use of recess appointments was when President George W. Bush promoted Judge Charles Pickering to the federal appellate court. Pickering’s nomination was stalled in the Senate in part because of concerns that he was not favorable to civil rights for blacks (he has been critical of the Voting Rights Act and supportive of banning interracial marriage). Bush elevated Pickering with a recess appointment…over the Martin Luther King, Jr holiday.
If Obama appoints Becker after this along with the rest of the obstinacy will result in a tidal wave of losses for Democrats in 2010. While the Congress may not be able to attack Becker, they can cut the funding for the Labor Board and make it toothless. In fact, we need to get rid of a number of Federal bureaucracies. Here is a start: Department of Labor, HUD, Department of Education and the list goes on. Killing these organizations would save the Nation hundreds of billions of dollars a year and improve our lives.
G.W. Bush made these recess appointments:
A. Paul Anderson to be a Federal Maritime Commissioner August 22, 2003. [1]
Michael J. Bartlett to be a Member of the National Labor Relations Board January 22, 2002. [2]
Warren Bell to the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in December 2006. [3]
Andrew G. Biggs was named to be Deputy Director of the Social Security Administration April 4, 2007.
John R. Bolton as U.N. Ambassador in August 2005, after having been blocked by the Senate. Bolton was Bush’s 106th recess appointment. (FSRN 1 Aug ’05)
William B. Cowen to be a Member of the National Labor Relations Board January 22, 2002. [4]
Susan E. Dudley to be Director of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) in the U.S. Office of Management and Budget on April 4, 2007.
Eric S. Edelman as undersecretary of defense for policy to replace Douglas Feith in the No. 3 position in the Pentagon. “Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee led by Carl Levin of Michigan, their ranking member, stalled Edelman’s nomination to force the release of documents related to a specialized intelligence unit Feith set up before the conflict.” [5]
Gordon R. England to be Deputy Secretary of Defense, January 4, 2006. [6]
Alice S. Fisher to head the Criminal Division in the Department of Justice, after the “nomination stalled over tactics at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, naval facility.” [7]
David W. Fleming to be a Member of the Board of Trustees of the James Madison Memorial Fellowship Foundation (Public) August 22, 2003. [8]
Peter Flory as an Assistant Secretary of Defense, after having been blocked by the Senate. [9]
Sam Fox was named Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenifotentiary of the United States of America to Belgium on April 4, 2007.
Cynthia A. Glassman to be a Member of the Commission of the Securities and Exchange Commission January 22, 2002. [10]
C. Boyden Gray to be the Representative of the United States of America to the European Union, with the Rank and Status of Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary January 17, 2006.
Jay Phillip Greene to be a Member of the Board of Trustees of the James Madison Memorial Fellowship Foundation (Academic) August 22, 2003. [11]
Floyd Hall to be a Member of the AMTRAK Reform Board, January 4, 2006. This is the second time that Hall was appointed in a recess appointment. [12]
Tracy A. Henke to be Executive Director of the Office of State and Local Government Coordination and Preparedness at the Department of Homeland Security. [13]
Isacc C. Hunt, Jr. [14] to be a Member of the Commission of the Securities and Exchange Commission January 22, 2002. [15]
JoAnn Johnson to be a Member of the Board of the National Credit Union Administration January 22, 2002. [16]
Peter N. Kirsanow to be a Member of the National Labor Relations Board, January 4, 2006. [17]
Charlotte A. Lane to be a Member of the United States International Trade Commission August 22, 2003. She was nominated on June 7, 2002 and again on January 9, 2003. [18]
Robert D. Lenhard to be a Member of the Federal Election Commission, January 4, 2006. [19]
Deborah Matz to be a Member of the Board of the National Credit Union Administration January 22, 2002.
Ronald E. Meisburg to be General Counsel to the National Labor Relations Board, January 4, 2006. [20]
Steven Kent Mullins to be United States Attorney for the District of South Dakota, vice James E. McMahon, January 9, 2006. [21]
Julie L. Myers to be Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security (Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement), January 4, 2006. [22]
Daniel Pearson to be a Member of the United States International Trade Commission August 22, 2003. He was nominated on November 14, 2002 and again on January 9, 2003. [23]
John Richard Petrocik to be a Member of the Board of Trustees of the James Madison Memorial Fellowship Foundation (Academic) August 22, 2003. [24]
Charles W. Pickering, Sr. to Federal Appeals Court January 17, 2004, from which he had been blocked twice by the Senate. [25][26]
Daniel Pipes to be a Member of the Board of Directors of the United States Institute of Peace August 22, 2003. [27]
Benjamin A. Powell to be General Counsel of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, January 4, 2006. [28]
Anthony J. Principi as chairman of the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission, as well as eight members of the Commission, April 1, 2005.
William H. Pryor, Jr. to 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals February 20, 2004, “in the face of a Democratic filibuster of the nomination.” [29][30]
Otto Juan Reich to Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs January 11, 2002. [31]
Ellen R. Sauerbrey to be Assistant Secretary of State (Population, Refugees, and Migration), January 4, 2006. [32]
Eugene Scalia to Solicitor of Labor in the U.S. Department of Labor January 11, 2002.
Peter C. Schaumber to be a Member of the National Labor Relations Board, for the remainder of a five-year term expiring on August 27, 2010. [33]
Dorrance Smith to be Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, January 4, 2006. [34]
Enrique J. Sosa to be a Member of the AMTRAK Reform Board, January 4, 2006. This is the second time that Sosa was appointed in a recess appointment. [35]
Michael E. Toner to be a Member of the Federal Election Commission March 29, 2002, for the remainder of a term expiring April 30, 2007; first announced November 21, 2001, and nomination sent to Senate March 4, 2002. [36]
Juanita Alicia Vasquez-Gardner to be a Member of the Board of Trustees of the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation. She was nominated on July 24, 2002 and again on January 9, 2003. [37]
Hans von Spakovsky to be a Member of the Federal Election Commission, January 4, 2006. [38]
Dennis P. Walsh to be a Member of the National Labor Relations Board, January 17, 2006.
Steven T. Walther to be a Member of the Federal Election Commission, January 4, 2006. [39]
John Paul Woodley, Jr. to be an Assistant Secretary of the Army (Civil Works) August 22, 2003. [40]
Obama does not have much regard for the constitution anyway, he would rewrite it to satisfy himself if he could…….let him go ahead and nominate them, the midterm elections will spoil his plans to put unqualified people in places of power as he has done before.
labor unions are dinosaurs, they had their day and should now be extinct. Becker should not get the nomination because he is pro-labor. I voted for Obama, but will vote anti-democrat if this goes through. Unions killed this country.
Obama’s going to bypass the constitution. Why does that statement, hold much fear and trepedation. Once you start down this road, you can’t call it back!! Let them Bypass the constitution once and they will do it again. This is the opening that we all have been scared of. The consequences of bypassing the constitution are horrifying of nothing else. The bill of rights and the constitution are the only things protecting us from the evils of gov’t gone to far. Now that i have read what obama’s planning on doing, im moving my plans ahead for preparation for full scale war in america. Make fun of me, call me a conspiracy theorist, rightwinger, but in the end-i’ll be alive and still fighting when the bypassing allows for a rise in the number of so called sanctioned killings of innocent americans!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! FOOD WATER FUEL AMMO GUNS AND SAFE HAVEN AND A BUG OUT PLAN-YOUR GOING TO NEED IT!!!!!!
Are they saying that Craig Becker will do as much damage at the NLRB as John Bolton did at the United Nations? Give me a break … It’s just more of the GOP nopes marching in step to the tune of the the privileged few.
The headline is completely inaccurate. Nothing unconstitutional about it. Obama is making a reasonable response to Republican obstructionism.
How can you say that “Obama Threatens Bypass Of Constitution With “Recess Appointments”” when the Constitution clearly states in Article II section 2 “The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.”?
Most people would feel stupid making this argument, but I guess you’re fine with it.
“George W. Bush used a recess appointment to place John Bolton as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in 2005″
OK but Bush did not try to put communist pieces of scum into positions of power like our Marxist illegal alien from Kenya President has done.
This particular appointment will be another nail in Obama’s political coffin. It’s not just Republicans opposing this SEIU Union radical; certain “concerned” democrats are against his appointment as well.
A lot of Americans who were, shall I say, ill-informed about Barack Obama’s socialist ideology have now been enlightened. Given the myriad of internet news outlets, the mainstream media’s attempt to suppress information about Obama and his fellow “progressives” (socialists) has failed.
Today, with the internet, we can read and watch the stories that, for the most part, would have gone “selectively” unreported by those “trusted” news anchors years ago. This appointment is a good example of how a radical union boss would have just been appointed and the general public would never known the politics behind it.
The internet has allowed a lot of us to connect dots that, in years past, we would have never had.
Becker is one of those dots.
The Title of this article is misleading. Hundreds or perhaps thousands of people are going to read the headline and think “I knew it Obama will stop at nothing to get what he wants including [Bypassing the Constitution]” and never even read the article or bother to get the facts. He is not bypassing the Constitution or breaking any laws with a Recess Appointment. These day it is Recess Appointments are a normal occurrence and necessary especially since the republicans don’t seem to want to work with anyone but themselves.
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.
More proof that obama is a threat to America and the American way of life and a threat to the American people. he is also a threat to world peace. How many people have and will die and have their lives stolen from them because of obama?
President Obama is not setting precedence by appointing officials over Congressional recess. As the above person mentioned GWB and BC both appointed during recess. Congress can come back and remove those individuals. What really needs to be done is for Congress to get along and ignore party loyalty for the sake of the country. All recent Presidents quote or ignore the Consitution to benift their own policies.
This article is just as inaccurate as the people who think they understand the Constitution based purely on reading the document. There’s an entire field called Constitutional Law dedicated to interpreting the Constitution. President Obama’s potential to recess appoint nominees does not go against the role of the Senate to “advise and consent” since “advise and consent” does not mean the Senate is required to approve of every Administration position.
You are completely irresponsible. This kind of bs published as truth is disgusting. Go ahead fuel the insanity in this country. George Bush did for more to circumvent the constitution and put in place more mechinisms for oppressing the citizens of this country and than any president ever even conceived of. You and your followers are full of it and your self righteousness and fear mongering business if shameless. You are doing more to destroy this country than any politician you point you grubby fingers at.
Twice in this hack piece you call it the NRLB… what is that, the National Rifle Liberation Bank?
john r… concerned americans should not be taking survival advice from a loony right-wingnut that doesn’t know the difference between your and you’re.
The Republicans did not “push Obama hard,” the Republicans did what they are entitled to do in the Senate. Up until that very moment in the Senate, Obama has been getting his way. This is about someone finally saying NO to Obama and he can’t handle it.
If he hadn’t wasted all of 2009 lying to the American people, trying to force a bogus healthcare bill down our throats and placing generations of future Americans into debt, he could have had this taken care of by now.
Obama did it to himself.
Some idiot said…
———–
If Obama appoints Becker after this along with the rest of the obstinacy will result in a tidal wave of losses for Democrats in 2010. While the Congress may not be able to attack Becker, they can cut the funding for the Labor Board and make it toothless. In fact, we need to get rid of a number of Federal bureaucracies. Here is a start: Department of Labor, HUD, Department of Education and the list goes on. Killing these organizations would save the Nation hundreds of billions of dollars a year and improve our lives.
———
That has to be the DUMBEST comment I’ve ever seen in my life! I have a MUCH better idea, cut the military and defense budget in HALF, that way we are only spending triple what China and Russia spend combined. And we could SAVE $300 BILLION !! Even if you like being the biggest terrorist organization in the world, you still have all of them beat.
Education, Housing and Urban development, and the Labor board?! If you cut those then corporate America does what it wants to workers. That is if they can find anyone educated enough, or that can afford a home to abuse.
All of the critics here elegantly display the level of ignorance in this country. Both parties take advantage of our ignorant/complacent population, but the GOP have been the champions of The Political Narrative for decades despite mind-boggling displays of deceit, misinformation, xenophobia, fear, and any semblence of common-sense or logic. The GOP is correct in that many of us leftists view the large swaths of [rural, older] populations as ignorant fools. They are incorrect in their assertion that we use this observation to wish an end to democracy/representation. The Left is just as “real-america” as the right. Our strategy has been fairly clear for centuries, even during the American Revolution when conservatives of the day were called British Loyalists. We educate. Education brings tolerance, fairness, equal rights, and improves all our lives. Education breeds progress. Education fixes ignorance. And education will kill the GOP. The only thing the GOP and its ignorant followers* can do is delay our progress. This saddens me. I have grown up watching the decline of US greatness, values, and power decline under “conservative leadership.” You can slow us down but you cannot stop progress.
*There are very valid criticisms and values, espoused by “conservatives,” I know of NONE that are practiced or upheld by the GOP. Hence, the entire party is a political ruse.
P.S. Sadly, I’m in the minority (0.01%) of courageous Americans who NEVER vote for DNC/GOP candidates or incumbent politicians. Many conservatives dishonestly claim they will, but the voting record reveals them as frauds.
HOW SOON WE FORGET BUSH’S END AROUND RUNS OF THE CONSTITUTION.50,60’70 OR MORE RECESS APPOINTMENTS!
Its how things get done. Congress is the problem…
It is thanks to Unions that we don’t have to work sixteen hour days, seven days a week. It is thanks to Unions that we have workplace safety laws and don’t have to work in hazardous conditions. It is thanks to Unions that we have child labor laws to prevent the exploitation of children by their being forced to work instead of going to school. It is thanks to Unions that we have employer sponsored health insurance plans.
It is thanks to Unions that we…that we used to have secure employer sponsored pension plans, but the Conservatives have chipped that away from the American middle class and are working to chip away all the other advances that Unions won for middle class working Americans in the 20th Century.
Thanks to President Obama for appointing someone who will stand up for average middle class working Americans. The Conservatives are only opposed to him because they always side with the multi-national corporations that have no loyalty to any country.
Wow! As multiple readers have pointed out it is not “bypassing the constitution” if the constitution allows for it. It’s also depressing to hear people describing Obama as a Marxist based on internet hearsay. These same people will vote in people who will cut back medicare ( a government program by the way you all have or hope to have) and richly reward Wall Street. You are being used.
Im all for it, its about time he (Obama) recognised that Republicans are not expressing the will of the vast majority and by passed this small impediement. Let get this country going again with more. How about health care without insurance companies! Or lending at a national level, without banks!! It could work, and they the 15% of the people, who the republicans represent, will really hollar!!! ha ha
Our liberal president is doing us a favor. he is opening a lot of eyes to the fact that he has no intention to help taxpayers with the miserable medical expenses, or anything else.
His only objective that I can see , is to bankrupt us as a nation.
He is doing a pretty good job.
Why should we be at all concerned with any of his apointees, Democrats as well as Republicans oppose his nominations , so stuff them down our throats when the Congress is in recess.
Where were all you crybaby winers when George W. Bush used this same tactic. Gee, do I sense a bunch of sore loosers in all these criticisms,including trying suspected terrorists in Fed court as G.W. Bush did hundreds of times with Great success I might add. And where was the outcry when Mistuh Bush broke the law and started torturing, hmmmmmmmm.
Article 2, Section 2:
“The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.”
This headline is fraudulent. Nice work.
Sen. R. Shelby (Jackass-AL) had held up 70 Obama appointments (now down to 49) in order to extort a promise & legislation that would allow the French communists & English communists who own, manage & manipulate the Euro company known as Airbus to build the new generation aerial refueling tanker for the US Air Force in Alabama.
Shelby’s plan is to make certain that the US Boeing Company does NOT get the contract for this key element of America’s defense system.
Won’t it be just great when those commie, socialist French & English trade unionists take over the State of Alabama and then refuse to re-supply parts & spares for the Air Force tankers in the future when Europe doesn’t approve of some US behavior.
Obama ain’t the commie dupe. Shelby and his redneck buddies are the dupes & dopes. It’s really funny to read the comments here about Obama as the shill for socialism at the same time Shelby & his pals are trying to give a multi-billion dollar contract to Airbus, which is owned by 2 socialist countries & has a high percentage of outright communist managers & workers. Go comradski Shelby & Sessions, the real “Red”-necks from Alabamski.
The correct headline should have been:
“Obama To Use Recess Appointment To Bypass Senate Obstructionists”
Perhaps if some of you had actually read the constitution (including the headline editor) you would have know that.
Bypassing the constitution would have been if he had arrested the senators that opposed him. A fun news story but a generally bad move for democracy.
Of course what can we expect from a web source that doesn’t know the difference between NLRB and NRLB.
Which is it guys?
Good editors are hard to find.
It is only mildly amusing the extent to which opponents of Obama’s “socialist agenda” are making the exact same arguments now that Bush’s opponents made over his two terms shredding the Constitution. When it was GW, it was okay, but now that it’s Obama it’s time to BUY GUNS AND RUN FOR THE HILLS.
Hey, go and run. We’ll manage just fine. The voters in my state just finished passing EVERY SINGLE TAX INCREASE requested by local school districts. Yep. We raised taxes on ourselves to pay for what we want.
Must be a bunch of socialists, I guess.
Here’s the thing. I don’t believe the author of this article – or the headline writer – are ignorant of the constitution. They are merely partisan hacks of the worst kind.
Of course what Obama is doing is permitted by the constitution. As other posters have pointed out, it’s been done all the time and is perfectly constitutionally legal.
Actually what is NOT in the constitution are Senatorial “holds” on candidates. It’s not even a Senate rule. It’s a good ‘ol boy tradition, that’s all.
But the hypocrisy of American’s Online “News” is overwhelming. Just to the right of Fox, are we?
we’re all going to die!!!!!!!! teh obamanation will eat our children and uthernizerfy are grammas! grab the guns and run fer the hills boys, them commies are taken over!!!!!!!!
This thread is hilarious. Half the participants are pointing out that President Obama would not be bypassing the Constitution by making recess appointments and citing Articles and Sections of the Constitution to support their claims while the other half of the participants blithely ignore these posts and choose instead to lament how President Obama is tearing down the Constitution by utilizing recess appointments. LOL
Hurray for Obama … He is finally getting a spine!
More “Obama is a Nazi, Socialist, Communist” crap? Let me explain something here, Mary Bee: Communism and Socialism are two DIFFERENT things. And guess what? Some of G.W. Bush’s policies would be considered Socialist. What is “No Child Left Behind” but an attempt to standardize education in the way many European nations standardize it. And what is Medicare? Medicare is government-run insurance for the elderly. Would you like Obama to get rid of that, so he’s not a Commie Nazi Fascist? Really–go back to school. We have socialized elements of government, which does not mean out government IS socialist, not to mention that socialist policies have been enacted for decades.
I’m with the others who object to your title and slant. Recess appointments are precisely defined in the Constitution. If this is a “bypass” of the Constitution then so is the Electoral College and the Bill of Rights.
You guys are publishing inflammatory nonsense and expecting not be called on it. Guess what.
No one is saying that Obama doesn’t have the right to make recess appointments. The problem here is that the Senate voted on Becker and said No.
All of those examples from Bush? How many of them were denied beforehand in a legal vote? No, not stalled or filibustered. Denied. Declined. Stopped.
If Obama gives the seat to Becker he is ignoring the will of the Senate and therefore the Constitution.
Obama can assign someone else. I’m sure there are people worse than Becker.
Republicans are completely insane, and traitors besides. You’re actually claiming that Obama is “bypassing” the Constitution, by using an Article of the Constitution?
What an ignorant title. He isn’t bypassing the Constitution by making recess appointments, the power to do so is apart of the Constitution!
Article II, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution:
“The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.”