Barack Obama has now officially been declared a law breaker by a federal court. Last year during the Senate recess, Obama made appointments to the National Labor Relations Board. Today the three panel judges that make up the Court ruled that they were both illegal and unconsitutional.
Obama named union lawyer Richard Griffin and Labor Department official Sharon Block, both Democrats, and a Republican, NLRB lawyer Terence Flynn, to the labor board using his recess powers back in January of 2012. He also named Richard Cordray to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, using those same powers. The Cordray appointment was not part of the court case decided Friday, but has been challenged separately in another suit.
“When Congress refuses to act and as a result hurts our economy and puts people at risk, I have an obligation as president to do what I can without them,” Obama said in January 2012. “I will not stand by while a minority in the Senate puts party ideology ahead of the people they were elected to serve.”
But the ruling has even broader constitutional significance, with the judges arguing that the president’s recess appointment powers don’t apply to “intrasession” appointments — those made when Congress has left town for a few days or weeks.
The judges signaled the power only applies after Congress has adjourned a session permanently, which in modern times usually means only at the end of a year. If the ruling withstands Supreme Court scrutiny, it would dramatically constrain presidents in the future.
And the court ruled that the only vacancies that the president can use his powers on are ones that arise when the Senate is in one of those end-of-session breaks. That would all but eliminate the list of positions the president could fill with his recess powers.
But the court said in the ruling that its duty was not to speed up government, but to hold to constitutional principles.
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