Recess Apointments Conundrum

[Jim Delaney]

POST SCRIPT: On 01/12/12, I contacted Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's office regarding  his position on this matter. And while his position is at variance with highly credible sources such as ACLJ (American Cntr for Law & Justice), here's what went down today:

While McConnell too is deeply frustrated by this unprecedented circumvention of Senate rules--rules which had been successfully applied by Sen. Reid in 2007 to block Bush appointments--whether or not Obama's action was, in the strictest sense of word, unconstitutional,  is questionable. While Obama did violate long accepted and honored "proforma session" Senate rules, technically speaking, he probably didn't violate the Constitution. Thus, a law suit is probably out of the question.

What McConnell's spokeswoman did confirm is that funding for both the Consumer Bureau and the NLRB has already been authorized, and that only a special act of Congress, which most likely would not pass muster in the Democratic-controlled Senate, could withhold that funding.. She also confirmed that since these appointments were, in the view of the President, "recess appointments", a formal confirmation process wasn't required, rendering the appointments a fait accompli.

So, we are, in effect, stuck with a presidential breach of trust--again!

Upshot: going forward, and thanks to the hypocrisy and double-standards of the Democrats, the heretofore generally accepted "proforma session" procedure will never again be relied upon by either party to prevent recess appointments. A new, ugly precedent has been established by the ruthless left, and on Capitol Hill both honor and integrity are, indeed, on life support.

Lesson learned: compromising with libs is suicidal; trusting a lib is delusional.

[PHILIP SCHNEIDER]

Our problem is the conservatives in congress always have to wait for the democrats to set the precedent . . .  and I'm sick of it.