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RECESS APPOINTMENTS

. .Updated Monday, May 03, 2010 04:50 PM

New - Take a look at the United States Senate Page on the history of nominations and appointments.  The history of Recess Appointments through the entire history of the country is there. 5-3-10

The "Recess Appointment" controversy has excited anger since the Constitution was ratified more than 200 years ago. The practical impact has always been to dilute the power of the United States Senate to totally block Presidential Appointments. This is an important part of the Checks and Balances built into our government. The President could operate the government totally on recess appointments if necessary, although it would surely be politically unpopular. Both parties use the Advice and Consent power to slow down, or prevent Presidential Appointments. Needless to say it irritates a sitting President, but is an important check on his powers. Opposing confirmation has prevented many bad appointments - including the last two TSA nominations which both turned out to have had improper conduct in prior relationships with the government.  04-01-10

President Makes Recess Appointments

      WASHINGTON –After facing months of Republican obstruction to administration nominees, President Obama announced his intent to recess appoint fifteen nominees to fill critical administration posts that have been left vacant, including key positions on the economic team and on boards that have been left with vacancies for months.

“The United States Senate has the responsibility to approve or disapprove of my nominees. But if, in the interest of scoring political points, Republicans in the Senate refuse to exercise that responsibility, I must act in the interest of the American people and exercise my authority to fill these positions on an interim basis,” said President Barack Obama. “Most of the men and women whose appointments I am announcing today were approved by Senate committees months ago, yet still await a vote of the Senate. At a time of economic emergency, two top appointees to the Department of Treasury have been held up for nearly six months. I simply cannot allow partisan politics to stand in the way of the basic functioning of government.”

Following their appointment, these nominees will remain in the Senate for confirmation.

Obama Administration appointees have faced an unprecedented level of obstruction in the Senate.

President Obama currently has a total of 217 nominees pending before the Senate. These nominees have been pending for an average of 101 days, including 34 nominees pending for more than 6 months.
The 15 nominees President Obama intends to recess appoint have been pending for an average of 214 days or 7 months for a total of 3204 days or almost 9 years.
President Bush had made 15 recess appointments by this point in his presidency, but he was not facing the same level of obstruction. At this time in 2002, President Bush had only 5 nominees pending on the floor. By contrast, President Obama has 77 nominees currently pending on the floor, 58 of whom have been waiting for over two weeks and 44 of those have been waiting more than a month.
The President announced his intention to recess appoint the following nominees:

Jeffrey Goldstein: Nominee for Under Secretary for Domestic Finance, Department of the Treasury
Jeffrey Goldstein is a former Managing Director of Hellman & Friedman LLC, a private equity investment firm with offices in San Francisco, New York and London. Mr. Goldstein served at the World Bank from 1999 to 2004, where he served as Managing Director and Chief Financial Officer. He oversaw the Bank's work with its client countries in strengthening financial and capital market systems. Mr. Goldstein was the Bank's point person on the International Development Association (IDA). He also helped lead the Bank's relationship with the G-8 countries. As Chief Financial Officer, he was responsible for the Bank's financial operations and budget. He was the Bank's representative on the Financial Stability Forum and on the International Monetary Fund's Capital Markets Consultative Group and Chairman of the Pension Finance Committee. Prior to joining the World Bank, Mr. Goldstein was Co-Chairman of BT Wolfensohn and a member of the Bankers Trust Company Management Committee. He held senior management positions and worked with BT Wolfensohn and its predecessor, James D. Wolfensohn Incorporated, for more than 15 years. Early in his career, Mr. Goldstein taught economics at Princeton University and worked at the Brookings Institution and the U. S. Department of the Treasury. Mr. Goldstein received his Ph.D., M.Phil., and M.A. in economics from Yale University. He received his B.A. with honors in economics from Vassar College (Phi Beta Kappa) and attended the London School of Economics. Mr. Goldstein is a member of the Board of LPL Holdings Inc., AlixPartners LLP and Grosvenor Capital Management and the Board of Trustees of the International Center for Research on Women. He is also on the Board of Trustees of Vassar College and is Chairman of the Vassar College Investments Committee. He is also a member of the Brookings Institution Global Leadership Council, The London School of Economics North American Advisory Board and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Michael F. Mundaca: Nominee for Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy, Department of the Treasury
Michael F. Mundaca currently is Senior Advisor for Policy within the Treasury Department's Office of Tax Policy and the Acting Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy. Mr. Mundaca served in the Treasury Department during the Clinton Administration and returned to the Treasury Department in 2007, as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Tax Affairs. Before that appointment, he was a partner for five years in the International Tax Services group of Ernst & Young's National Tax Department, in Washington, D.C. His practice focused on cross-border planning and structuring, including especially tax treaty issues, and on international legislative and regulatory monitoring and consulting. Before joining Ernst & Young, Mr. Mundaca served for over five years in Treasury's Office of the International Tax Counsel, leaving as the Deputy International Tax Counsel. He was also Treasury's Senior Advisor on Electronic Commerce. Prior to that first stint in Treasury, he was an associate at Sullivan & Cromwell, a law firm in New York. Mr. Mundaca has been an adjunct professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, teaching a seminar on tax treaties. Mr. Mundaca received a B.A. in philosophy and in physics from Columbia University, in 1986, and an M.A.in philosophy from the University of Chicago, in 1988. He received a J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law (Boalt Hall), in 1992, where he was Senior Executive Editor of The California Law Review and a member of the Order of the Coif. He also has an LL.M., in taxation (international tax specialization), from the University of Miami.

Eric L. Hirschhorn: Nominee for Under Secretary of Commerce for Export Administration and head of the Bureau of Industry and Security, Department of Commerce
Eric Hirschhorn, a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Winston & Strawn LLP, long has been active in the areas of international law, litigation, and professional responsibility. As Deputy Assistant Secretary for Export Administration at the U.S. Department of Commerce (1980-81), Mr. Hirschhorn oversaw U.S. export controls for items having commercial as well as military applications, antiboycott compliance, restraints on imports for national security reasons, and the Department’s participation in the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). Earlier, while a member of President Jimmy Carter’s reorganization project staff (1977-80), he worked on reorganizing the government’s international trade, public diplomacy, and foreign assistance mechanisms. Before working in the Executive branch, Mr. Hirschhorn held several congressional staff positions, was in private law practice in New York City, and was a legal services lawyer. Mr. Hirschhorn has represented clients on a wide range of commercial and regulatory matters since returning to private law practice in 1981. He is Executive Secretary of the Industry Coalition on Technology Transfer (ICOTT), a group whose industry participants are affected by U.S. export control and embargo rules. He is the author of The Export Control and Embargo Handbook, Second Edition, published in 2004, and numerous articles on export controls, embargoes and related topics. He chairs the D.C. Bar Rules of Professional Conduct Review Committee and is a member (and former chair) of the D.C. Bar Legal Ethics Committee. He also is a member of the New York City Bar Association and the Thurgood Marshall American Inn of Court. Mr. Hirschhorn received his B.A. degree from the University of Chicago and a J.D. degree from Columbia University, where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar.

Michael Punke: Nominee for Deputy Trade Representative - Geneva, Office of the United States Trade Representative
Michael Punke has worked in the field of international trade law and policy for two decades. From 1995 to 1996, Punke served as Senior Policy Advisor at the Office of the United States Trade Representative. There, he advised the USTR on issues ranging from agricultural trade to intellectual property protection. From 1993 to 1995, Punke served at the White House as Director for International Economic Affairs with a joint appointment to the National Security Council and the National Economic Council. His responsibilities included assisting in the management of the interagency process. From 1991 to 1992, Punke was International Trade Counsel to Senator Max Baucus, then Chairman of the Finance Committee’s International Trade Subcommittee. Punke has also worked on international trade issues from the private sector, including as a partner at the Washington, D.C., office of Mayer, Brown, Rowe, & Maw. From 2003 to 2009, Punke advised clients on trade issues through out of Missoula, Montana. Since January 2010, Punke has served as a Consultant to the U.S. Trade Representative. He also has worked as an adjunct professor at the University of Montana and as a writer, authoring a novel, two books of nonfiction, and two screenplays. Punke is a graduate of George Washington University and Cornell Law School, where he was elected Editor-in-Chief of the Cornell International Law Journal.

Francisco "Frank" J. Sánchez: Nominee for Under Secretary for International Trade, Department of Commerce
Francisco J. Sánchez currently serves as a Senior Advisor to Commerce Secretary Gary Locke on international trade issues. He served as a Policy Advisor on Latin America to the Obama For America campaign. He was also the Chairman of the campaign's National Hispanic Leadership Council. In 1999, Sanchez became a Special Assistant to President Clinton, working in the Office of the Special Envoy for the Americas. While at the White House, Sanchez worked with the National Security Council, the State Department and the U.S. Trade Representative. Clinton later appointed Sánchez as U.S. Assistant Secretary of Transportation where he developed aviation policy and oversaw international negotiations. Prior to his work in the federal government, Sánchez practiced corporate and administrative law with the firm of Steel, Hector and Davis in Miami, Florida. Before practicing law, he served in the administration of former Florida Governor (and later U.S. Senator) Bob Graham, as the first director of the state’s Caribbean Basin Initiative Program. For the last 15 years, Sanchez has worked with several consulting companies on projects involving complex transactions, labor-management negotiations, litigation settlement, negotiation strategy, alliance management, facilitation and training, most recently as a partner with CM Partners. Among his public-sector engagements, Sánchez headed a team in Medellín, Colombia as part of a "Teaching Tolerance" program. He also advised the president of Ecuador in negotiations to settle the 56-year-old border dispute with Peru. He is a contributing author to Negociación 2000, a collection of essays on negotiation published by McGraw-Hill. A Florida native, Mr. Sánchez attended the University of Florida, received his undergraduate and law degrees from Florida State University and holds a master’s degree in public administration from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Islam A. Siddiqui: Nominee for Chief Agricultural Negotiator, Office of the U.S. Trade Representative
Islam A. Siddiqui is currently Vice President for Science and Regulatory Affairs at CropLife America, where he is responsible for regulatory and international trade issues related to crop protection chemicals. Previously, Dr. Siddiqui also served as CropLife America’s Vice President for agricultural biotechnology and trade. From 1997 to 2001, Dr. Siddiqui served in various capacities in the Clinton Administration at U.S. Department of Agriculture as Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs, Senior Trade Advisor to Secretary Dan Glickman and Deputy Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs. As a result, he worked closely with the USTR and represented USDA in bilateral, regional and multi-lateral agricultural trade negotiations. Since 2004, Dr. Siddiqui has also served on the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Industry Trade Advisory Committee on Chemicals, Pharmaceuticals, and Health/Science Products & Services, which advises the U.S. Secretary of Commerce and USTR on international trade issues related to these sectors. Between 2001 and 2003, Dr. Siddiqui was appointed as Senior Associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), where he focused on agricultural biotechnology and food security issues. Before joining USDA, Dr. Siddiqui spent 28 years with the California Department of Food and Agriculture. He received a B.S. degree in plant protection from Uttar Pradesh Agricultural University in Pantnagar, India, as well as M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in plant pathology, both from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana.

Alan D. Bersin: Nominee for Commissioner, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Department of Homeland Security
Alan Bersin was appointed by Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano in April, 2009 as Assistant Secretary for International Affairs and Special Representative for Border Affairs in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). In that capacity, he serves as the Secretary's lead representative on Border Affairs and Mexico, for developing DHS strategy regarding security, immigration, narcotics, and trade matters affecting Mexico and for coordinating the Secretary's security initiatives on the nation's borders. Prior to his current service, Bersin served as Chairman of the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority. Previously, Mr. Bersin served as California’s Secretary of Education between July 2005 and December 2006 in the Administration of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Between 1998 and 2005, he served as Superintendent of Public Education in San Diego and from 2000 to 2003 served as a member and then Chairman of the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing. Prior to becoming the leader of the nation’s eighth largest urban school district, he was appointed by President Bill Clinton as the United States Attorney for the Southern District of California and confirmed in that capacity by the U.S. Senate. Mr. Bersin served as U.S. Attorney for nearly five years and as the Attorney General’s Southwest Border Representative responsible for coordinating federal law enforcement on the border from South Texas to Southern California. Mr. Bersin previously was a senior partner in the Los Angeles law firm of Munger, Tolles & Olson. Mr. Bersin received his A.B. in Government from Harvard University (magna cum laude) and attended Balliol College at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. In 1974, he received his J.D. degree from the Yale Law School.:

Jill Long Thompson: Nominee for Member, Farm Credit Administration Board
Jill Long Thompson is a former Member of the United States House of Representatives and the former Under Secretary for Rural Development at the United States Department of Agriculture. She also served as Chief Executive Officer and Senior Fellow at The National Center for Food and Agricultural Policy, a not-for-profit, non-advocacy research and policy organization. She is the first and only woman to be nominated by a major party to run for Governor in Indiana, as well as the first and only Hoosier woman to be nominated by a major party to run for the United States Senate. Long Thompson joined the faculty at Valparaiso University in 1981 and in 1983 was elected to the City Council. In 1989 Long Thompson was elected to represent Northeast Indiana in Congress. She went on to serve three terms in the House, where she was a member of the Agriculture Committee and the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. She introduced one of the nation’s first pieces of legislation banning Members of Congress from accepting gifts and expanding the disclosure requirements for lobbying activities. After leaving Congress, Long Thompson was appointed by President Bill Clinton to serve as the Under Secretary for Rural Development at the United States Department of Agriculture. In her five years at USDA, she oversaw a $10 billion annual budget and 7,000 employees while managing a number of programs that provide services to the underserved areas of rural America. Long Thompson earned a B.S. in Business Administration from Valparaiso University and an M.B.A. and Ph.D. in Business from the Kelley School at Indiana University.

Rafael Borras: Nominee for Under Secretary for Management , Department of Homeland Security
Rafael Borras currently serves as a Vice President, Construction Services, for the Mid-Atlantic Region with URS Corporation, a global engineering services firm. Prior to joining the URS, Mr. Borras served as the Regional Administrator for the Mid-Atlantic Region of the U.S. General Services Administration. Prior to serving in this position, he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Administration in the U.S. Department of Commerce. Mr. Borras also served as Deputy City Manager in the City of Hartford, Connecticut, where he was responsible for the departments of finance, police, fire, code enforcement, information technology, purchasing, budget, and human relations. Mr. Borras began his public sector career with Metropolitan Dade County Government, serving in the Office of the County Administrator as an administrative officer.

Craig Becker: Nominee for Board Member, National Labor Relations Board
Craig Becker currently serves as Associate General Counsel to both the Service Employees International Union and the American Federation of Labor & Congress of Industrial Organizations. He graduated summa cum laude from Yale College in 1978 and received his J.D. in 1981 from Yale Law School where he was an Editor of the Yale Law Journal. After law school he clerked for the Honorable Donald P. Lay, Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. For the past 27 years, he has practiced and taught labor law. He was a Professor of Law at the UCLA School of Law between 1989 and 1994 and has also taught at the University of Chicago and Georgetown Law Schools. He has published numerous articles on labor and employment law in scholarly journals, including the Harvard Law Review and Chicago Law Review, and has argued labor and employment cases in virtually every federal court of appeals and before the United States Supreme Court.

Mark Pearce: Nominee for Board Member, National Labor Relations Board
Mark Gaston Pearce has been a labor lawyer for his entire career. He is one of the founding partners of the Buffalo, New York law firm of Creighton, Pearce, Johnsen & Giroux where he practices union side labor and employment law before state and federal courts and agencies including the N.Y.S. Public Employment Relations Board, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the U.S. Department of Labor, and the National Labor Relations Board. Pearce in 2008 was appointed by the NYS Governor to serve as a Board Member on the New York State Industrial Board of Appeals, an independent quasi-judicial agency responsible for review of certain rulings and compliance orders of the NYS Department of Labor in matters including wage and hour law. Pearce has taught several courses in the labor studies program at Cornell University’s School of Industrial Labor Relations Extension. He is a Fellow in the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers. Prior to 2002, Pearce practiced union side labor law and employment law at Lipsitz, Green, Fahringer, Roll, Salisbury & Cambria LLP. From 1979 to 1994, he was an attorney and District Trial Specialist for the NLRB in Buffalo, NY. Pearce received his J.D. from State University of New York, and his B.A. from Cornell University.

Jacqueline A. Berrien, Nominee for Chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
Ms. Berrien has served as Associate Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) since September 2004. In that position, she assists with the direction and implementation of LDF’s national legal advocacy and scholarship programs. Ms. Berrien served from 2001 to 2004 as a Program Officer in the Ford Foundation’s Peace and Social Justice Program, where she administered more than $13 million of grants to promote greater political participation by underrepresented groups and remove barriers to civic engagement. Prior to joining the Ford Foundation, Ms. Berrien was an Assistant Counsel with LDF and directed the Fund’s voting rights and political participation work. For eight years before that, Ms. Berrien was a staff attorney with the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union. Berrien has also taught in trial advocacy programs at Fordham and Harvard law schools and served on the adjunct faculty of New York Law School. She began her legal career clerking for the Honorable U.W. Clemon, the first African-American appointed to the U.S. District Court in Birmingham, Alabama. Ms. Berrien is a graduate of Harvard Law School, where she served as a General Editor of the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree with High Honors in Government from Oberlin College and also completed a major in English.

Chai R. Feldblum: Nominee for Commissioner, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
Chai Feldblum is a Professor of Law at the Georgetown University Law Center where she has taught since 1991. She also founded the Law Center’s Federal Legislation and Administrative Clinic, a program designed to train students to become legislative lawyers. Feldblum previously served as Legislative Counsel to the AIDS Project of the American Civil Liberties Union. In this role, she developed legislation, analyzed policy on various AIDS-related issues, and played a leading role in the drafting of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and, later as a law professor, in the passage of the ADA Amendments Act of 2008. She has also worked on advancing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights and has been a leading expert on the Employment Nondiscrimination Act. As Co-Director of Workplace Flexibility 2010, Feldblum has worked to advance flexible workplaces in a manner that works for employees and employers. Feldblum clerked for Judge Frank Coffin and for Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun. She received her J.D. from Harvard Law School and B.A. from Barnard College.

Victoria A. Lipnic: Nominee for Commissioner, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
Victoria A. Lipnic is of counsel in the Washington, D.C. office of Seyfarth Shaw LLP. Ms. Lipnic was the U.S. Assistant Secretary of Labor for Employment Standards from 2002 until 2009. In addition to her work with the Department of Labor, Ms. Lipnic’s experience in Washington, D.C. includes service as Workforce Policy Counsel to the Republican members of the Education and Labor Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives. Before her work for Congress, Ms. Lipnic acted as in-house counsel for labor and employment matters to the U.S. Postal Service for six years. She also served as a special assistant for business liaison to the U.S. Secretary of Commerce, the Honorable Malcolm Baldrige. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science and History from Allegheny College and a Juris Doctor degree from George Mason University School of Law.

P. David Lopez: Nominee for General Counsel, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
David Lopez has served at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) for 13 years in the field and at headquarters. He began at the EEOC in 1994 as a Special Assistant to Commissioner Casellas. Currently, Mr. Lopez is a Supervisory Trial Attorney with the EEOC’s Phoenix District Office. During his tenure, Mr. Lopez has successfully tried several cases on behalf of the EEOC in a wide variety of legal bases. Before joining the Commission, Mr. Lopez served at the Civil Rights Division, Employment Litigation Section, at the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. from 1991 to 1994. From 1988 to 1991, he was an Associate with Spiegel and McDiarmid. Mr. Lopez received a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School in 1988 and a Bachelor of Science in Political Science from Arizona State University in 1985, magna cum laude.


The President Threatens Recess Appointments

 Senator Hatch, (R-UT) has warned the President not to use "recess appointment" during current recess to appoint a member of National Labor Relations Board.  George Bush used that route to appoint five pro-business lawyers to NLRB during his term.  Does "Good for the Goose, Good for the Gander" apply here?  Obama is likely to make this NLRB appointment in a few days. 01-11-10 See Recess Appointments.

President Obama has had it with Senator's holds.  He called them "obstructionist" and "theater" when meeting the press on Tuesday.  He said pass them or it is time for him to make  Recess Appointments when the Senate retires at the end of the week for the President's Day recess.  See Details on Recess Appointments here. 02-10-10

  The United States Senate formally adjourned today after months of proforma sessions during recess periods to block the Bush administration from making recess appointments.  The dispute between the Senate and the President became absolute during this period and no recess appointments were successfully made by the President.  See this Washington Post story 1-2-09.

Blocking the President:  Majority Leader Reid apparently had an understanding with Bush to make prompt nominations of Democrats to various agencies where the leadership is divided between the parties.  Reid said he would move nominations along in the Senate - which he says he did with the AG Mukasey nomination.  He further suggests that the President hasn't kept his part of this deal.  His problem:  How to handle the impending Thanksgiving recess of the Congress, and then the subsequent Christmas recess until early January?

Solution:  Majority Leader Reid did not recess the Senate and has scheduled meetings of that body every 3rd or 4th day with two or more Senators present, and of course, they will immediately adjourn until the next meeting.  In this situation, under Senate rules, the Senate will not be recessed in a format that would allow the President to make a recess appointment.

Behind this issue:  Throughout this Bush administration there has been a political fight between the White House and the Senate - even during the GOP control of the Senate.  The GOP has pitched the policy that the President has a superior power in these things - directly in opposition to the Constitution of the United States and in particular to the idea of the Advice and Consent required on many Executive Appointments.  There are a number of calculated strategies on the part of the White House based on the Bush Administration frustrations with the shared power philosophies of the United States through its entire Constitutional history.  These are raw power moves to eliminate Senate participation in the appointment process.  The current struggle in reality is an application of the "checks and balances" doctrines built into the United States government. 11 18 07


The Constitution of the United States provides for Recess Appointments by the President at times when the Senate is away from its public business - in Recess.

Historical perspective about the Constitution reminds us that the young United States was a rural nation with a Congress that met only briefly with long recesses in each Session.  That led to the practical problem of vacant appointments for long periods when there was no opportunity for confirmation by the Senate.

The President has the authority under the Constitution to fill a vacant position that requires Senate confirmation without submitting the nominee to the Senate and waiting for the Senate to confirm or reject.  That nominee holds the position with a recess appointment until the end of the Senate session in which he was appointed - without confirmation.  Such a nominee can continue in that position after the next Senate Session begins, but must serve without direct or indirect compensation.  Until that point - the nominee has all the rights, privileges - and compensation - of a confirmed appointment.

The Recess Appointment has a huge potential for controversy.  To be fair, it is not a widely used process, and much of the time for the purpose it was intended to serve.  Controversy develops - raging controversy develops - when a President makes an appointment fully intending to avoid Senate inspection and confirmation of the nominee.  The Senate often is angry - particularly in situations where the nominee has already been rejected by the Senate or somehow been prevented from taking office during the Senate considerations.  Interest groups on both sides of the appointment are quick to be heard in these situations.

Presidents have been generally consistent in using the Recess Appointments over the life of the United States.  While many have been controversial - may have been routine.  Even so - the controversy involved has been an issue throughout the experience of the Presidency - and there has been extensive litigation about how it is supposed to be used.  One issue is what constitutes recess - does a weekend off for the Senate constitute a Recess for the purposes of the Constitutional provision - answer seems to be "yes.". .


  Recess Appointments as a Political Issue:   Recess appointments rarely become much of a national political issue. The President's recess appointments of John Bolton to the UN Ambassadorship and now the Fox recess appointment to Belgium have given Democrats a powerful corruption issue.  Combined with the United States Attorney issues, political appointments are becoming a disaster for the Administration.  What is genuinely peculiar about this situations is that the President has an absolute legal right to deal with the appointments as he has, but has developed a nearly congenital capacity to mismanage both practices.  His political opponents in both parties and in the public are using both situations to weaken the White House on Iraq and other subjects.  This is also triggering the movement of power within the Republican Party back to the conservative politicos and away from the White House.  The Lame Duck Presidency is moving to a Wounded and Dead-Duck Presidents quickly.  9 10 07

  • John Isaacson Says: (Blog comment)
    April 5th, 2007 at 4:15 pm

    We deal with the Recess Appointments issue almost daily, and particularly agree with the assessment that Bush, et al, is essentially an anti-constitutional Presidency. Although he has not used the recess appointment much more than many Presidents, almost every one was offensive to the ideas of Constitutional, lawful government.

    There is an important place for recess appointments in emergency situations and the process makes constitutional sense in many hypothetical settings - a few of which have actually happened over the years.

    In dealing with Presidential Appointments on a daily basis, we are never surprised at how little attention the Bush government gives the People instead of private, usually economic interests. The Baroody nomination to Consumer Safety is almost certainly going to be another slap in the face of the confirmation process, not to speak of a brutalizing gut punch to the safety of consumers.

    John Isaacson
    Director@Presidential-Appointments.org


    The President has made three additional recess appointments, these made just before the Congress returned from recess this last week.  Fox, a major political contributor from Missouri, was named Ambassador to Belgium.  Senator Kerry of Massachusetts placed a hold on his nomination in the Senate confirmation procedure because Fox led the "Swift Boat" attacks on Kerry during the  2004 Presidential Elections.  Two other recess appointments were made, both ones held up by the Senate confirmation procedure at the time of the appointments.  These appointments end when the 2009 new Congress convenes and the President leaves office.   Fox is offering to work for free - a matter which some Senators believe may be illegal, i.e., recess appointments must take pay for their work on the first appointment.   Another constant issue is the impact of the confirmation on nominee qualifications and to what extent that improves or examines the quality of the appointment.  September 8 2007


    Copyright John Isaacson 2002-2009

    617 504 3699

    Director@Presidential-Appointments.org. .

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Owner Vita

     John Isaacson, page owner, graduated from Washington University Law School - He was involved in Missouri state politics as campaign manager for Governor and as state Republican Campaign Chairman in 1963-1964. Isaacson was an Air Force Intelligence Officer in Europe during the Berlin Crisis under John Kennedy - President Nixon appointed him to serve on the President's Commission for the Observance of the 25th Anniversary of the United Nations, serving on the Executive Committee and the China Subcommittee which recommended the admission of China to the United Nations. His political experience includes meetings with Presidents Harry Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon, and Ford. He enjoyed a long personal friendship with Eleanor Roosevelt and Edna Gellhorn, the founder of The League of Women Voters. Isaacson has traveled extensively throughout Europe and the Near and Far East.  He now lives in western Montana near the Rocky Mountain Continental Divide in Butte Montana, the "Richest Hill on Earth."

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