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Friday, June 27, 2014

The President is not a King in the USA


The President is not a King in the USA

Nor are his appointed advisors of similar people like him

Supreme Court Curbs President’s Power to Make Recess Appointments


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WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday said President Obama had violated the Constitution when he bypassed the Senate to appoint officials to the National Labor Relations Board during a brief break in the Senate’s work.

But the larger message of the court’s majority opinion, written by Justice Stephen G. Breyer and joined by its four more liberal members, was that there is a role for recess appointments so long as they are made during a recess of 10 or more days.

Justice Antonin Scalia agreed with the result in the case but issued a caustic concurrence from the bench. “The majority practically bends over backwards to ensure that recess appointments will remain a powerful weapon in the president’s arsenal,” he said.

The decision affirmed a broad ruling last year from a federal appeals court in Washington that had called into question the constitutionality of many recess appointments by presidents of both parties.

The immediate practical significance of Thursday’s decision was undercut by the Senate’s recent overhaul of its filibuster rules and by the Senate’s confirmation of a different slate of nominees to the labor board. Republican filibusters had frustrated the Obama administration and prompted its recess appointments.

But the constitutional ruling, involving the balance of power between the president and the Senate, was nonetheless momentous.

The Constitution’s recess-appointments clause says, “The president shall have power to fill up all vacancies that may happen during the recess of the Senate.”

Analyzing that language, a three-judge panel of the appeals court last year said that presidents may bypass the Senate only during the recesses between formal sessions of Congress. Two of the judges went further, saying that presidents may fill only vacancies that arose during that same recess.

The case arose from a labor dispute involving a soft-drink bottling company, Noel Canning. The labor board ruled against the company, saying it had engaged in an unfair labor practice by refusing to enter into a collective bargaining agreement.

The company appealed, arguing that the labor board had been powerless to rule because a majority of its members had been appointed during a 20-day stretch when the Senate was convening every three days in pro forma sessions without conducting any business. Since the members of the board were not properly appointed, the company argued, its ruling was void.

In asking the Supreme Court to review the appeals court’s ruling in the case, National Labor Relations Board v. Noel Canning, No. 12-1281, the Obama administration sought an answer to only the broader questions decided by the appeals court. But the Supreme Court, acting on the suggestion of the company that had won before the appeals court, agreed to answer a narrower question, too: whether the president may make recess appointments when the Senate is convening every three days in pro forma sessions.

The administration said long tradition supported its position, noting that presidents of both parties have made many appointments in breaks during sessions of Congress. When the case was argued in January, Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr. asked the justices not to “repudiate the constitutional legitimacy of thousands of appointments by presidents going back to George Washington.”

 


 

Posters comments:

1)       I have ordered some extra freeze dried beef, just in case.

2)      I have ordered some extra TVP (textured vegetable protein), just in case. TVP is basically American high tech soybean product.

3)      All I want to do is live to include my Family doing OK if times get hard.

4)      Since I personally believe we have too many people on the earth, there are better ways to solve the problem that the present elected and appointed people want to do.

 

 

 

 

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