Discussion for article #222890
The Senate rules need to be changed. Recess appointments is a power granted to the POTUS in the constitution. Perpetual pro forma sessions need to be eliminated.
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What a lot of nonsense. Time to change both the Senate rules and get rid of the filibuster altogether.
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curtails–doubtful
This is a narrow ruling. It gives the President substantial recess appointment power. It says the only problem with the appointments was that the President had to respect the Senate’s pro forma recesses.
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I will remind the Baggernuts… Obama will be gone in 2017 and I think y’all will run a realistic candidate again at some point (no rush though)… SCOTUS might do well to remember that. Petards and all that, you know.
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Well yes, but there’s absolutely nothing to prevent a hostile (read: Republican) Senate having nothing but pro forma recesses. It makes it possible for the Senate to nullify one clause of the Constitution without amending it. Not good.
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So as far as SCOTUS is concerned the Senate is always supposed to be in session. even though I don’t see it on my C-Span 2 on the weekends. Oh my, C-span needs to get rid of Book Tv!!?? Most recess appointments take place during the Christmas recess. Looks like Harry Reid needs to end these pro forma sessions when ever the Senate goes on breaks.
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I’m sure a lot of people will be cheering over this . . . because they’re too dumb to realize that it’s one of those kinds of rulings that cuts both ways.
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Recess appointments, used by many past presidents, became controversial after Obama began to use them the exact same way his immediate predecessors, who were white and mostly Republican, did. more frequently to appoint nominees to federal agencies like the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the National Labor Relations Board when they were bottled up by Senate Republicans.
Fixed that for you.
And I realize it’s always TERRIBLE NEWS!!! FOR OBAMA!!! in Sahilland, but really, there’s more bad drama in this story about a rather narrow ruling than in a high school production of “Death of a Salesman.”
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I long for the day when we speak of Scalia in the past tense.
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Activist wingnut justices will just ignore precedent and do whatever they must to aid the cause. You’ve got to think about these things from an activist wingnut point of view.
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The SCOTUS curtailed every POTUS’ recess appointment power.
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It does seem that there is the capability for the President to call the House and Senate into session, and then adjourn them, creating a recess, but that hasn’t been tested.
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I loathe Scalia as well, but this ruling was 9-0. Sotomayor, Kagan, Ginsburg were on board. That’s pretty strong evidence that the WH totally failed to make a compelling legal argument.
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I understand exactly what you’re saying but, really, the GOP won’t be in the WH for at least the next 2 election (i.e., 2024). And, by then, they WILL figure out a way to get around SCOTUS’ ruling.
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Unanimous ruling. Not a blow to President Obama, but a fine-tuning of recess appointment powers by ALL Presidents.
Recess appointments are wrong, in these days of jet travel, for any President. Recess appointments were written into the Constitution in the days of sailing ships and stagecoaches, when the Congress had difficulty reaching Washington and when sessions of Congress lasted a few months every year.
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The headline on the main page is hyperbolic bullshit—and so is most of Sahil’s story.
The ruling was very narrow—it does nothing but state that the president—any president—must accept pro forma Senate sessions.
Aside from that, it doesn’t have any effect on recess appointments.
I do wish that TPM would stop with these click-bait headlines, which are far more suited to Drudge or Breitbart.
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Am I the only who thinks it is important to include the ruling count (e.g., 5-4, 6-3) and who did what? Good grief, it should be included in every single article on a SCOTUS ruling. Even the NYTimes can’t seem to handle this.
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"The majority opinion was joined by Justices Anthony Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. The ruling was relatively narrow and could have been much worse for the Obama administration. The other four justices wanted to go further in curtailing the recess appointment power.
Justice Antonin Scalia, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, wrote a separate opinion agreeing with the outcome but saying they’d further restrict the president’s authority to filling vacancies that arise only during the recess in question. (The majority ruling allows the president to fill slots during a recess regardless of when they were vacated.)"
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So, I guess when the Repugs go back and start unraveling all the rulings made by these “illegally appointed individuals”, they will, of course, include those made by Repuglican appointees as well? I’m sure they will try to go back 200 years and overturn all the decisions made.
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