I have a question for you: Republican justices struck down Obama’s recess appointments and some are saying that this is the end of recess appointments….is there a way Republican can just reverse the ruling once there’s a Republican president who wants to make recess appointments?
Ditto for the electoral college changes in VA (and soon to be other states): if Republicans think they can take the state outright, will they just try to change the system back?
srv
They can probably pass some bill with a 4 year term and renew upon re-elections. Dems will roll over. GOP will then filibuster renewals if a Dem gets in.
Baud
Jeez, looks like it’s cynicism Saturday at Balloon Juice.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
You’re assuming the geniuses in charge of these moves are thinking anywhere beyond ‘Ursurper-in-Chief’. They’re setting fire to Obama’s house without realizing they’re surrounded by their own flames.
Brachiator
The case is going to the Supremes.
Congress may have to resolve part of this among themselves. The GOP had come up with some bullshit to have a skeleton crew in session, but were able to avoid considering any of Obama’s candidates. The Democrats may be able to pull this on a Republican president.
But the bottom line is that it prevents the president from governing effectively. A bit of a constitutional crisis, no?
Buffy
Well, while there’s been much discussion of the NLRB decisions being vacated (because it was part of the suit) and the implications for vacating the CFPB too, no one’s said a thing about vacating all the decisions of departments filled by Dubya’s recess appointments, but I’d think that would be a goldmine.
Unintended consequences….
c u n d gulag
SATSQ:
YES!!!
The Federal Courts, stuffed with Conservatives, will be activist when necessary, and sit on their asses, when desireable.
And so will the SCOTUS, until, or unless, President Obama can replace one of the 5 Fascists and Nihilists.
James E. Powell
@c u n d gulag:
President Obama’s supreme court appointment of anyone to replace one of the five right-wingers would be the most important legacy of his administration. If he is replacing one of the others, not so much. He could appoint a socialist to replace Ginsburg, for example, and it wouldn’t really affect the outcomes.
Ben Franklin
CDC ‘surprised’ at ineffectiveness of flu vaccine.
http://www.naturalnews.com/038826_flu_vaccine_victims_hospitals.html
PeakVT
1) The ruling has a good chance of not standing, but if it does, there’s no way to reverse it legislatively since it’s an interpretation of the Constitution. The ruling becomes less important if the same party controls both the Presidency and the Senate. 2) Of course the Repukes would try to reverse any EC apportionment legislation if they thought they would win outright. The question is how much backlash would they face if such a move was done, say, two months before an election. How much backlash if a legislature was called into session specifically to pass such legislation? Dunno at this point.
KrisWV
On the second question, it’s no mystery why Bob McDonnell is opposed; if he were to run for president, he would win Virginia fairly easily — 13 electoral votes in the bag. Under the reallocation, he could only possibly get 11 of those votes. The 3rd and the 8th would go to the Democrat running.
Why would he want to give away 2 votes in his column? To help some other white guy (or Sarah Palin) running for the Republican nomination? For the greater good of the party? Nope, he has to look out for #1.
Brachiator
@Ben Franklin:
You’re joking, right?
ding dong
Well duh if the said president is blackity blacky black recess appts are illegal. Its in the law dontcha know it. I swear the stuff you have to explain to libtards! Hrrumph!
MikeJ
I don’t really see how it matters. All the president has to do is appoint an “acting” head of whatever department and issue executive orders for anything that goes beyond day to day operations.
burnspbesq
Impeach David Sentelle!
RSA
I’ve had the same thought about the nuclear option in the Senate… In fact, I’ve had the same thought about a lot of things Republicans do or agree with.
Violet
The Republicans might get away with changing the system to suit them, but changing it back and then back again when it suits them. will eventually damage the party. Smarter Republicans are saying pretty much this–“respect for tradition”, “don’t want to be hasty”, etc.
max
is there a way Republican can just reverse the ruling once there’s a Republican president who wants to make recess appointments?
What Brachiator and PeakVT said. 1) This may be reversed on appeal. 2) It may be reversed at the Supreme Court. 3) If it’s upheld by the Supremes, it depends entirely on how they do it. Reversing precedent all the way back to 1823 is pretty difficult, but there’s no telling.
The problem is, is that clearly the President can appoint people during some kind of recess, so it’s only a question of what kind of recess is allowed. A narrow upholding of the ruling would allow an R to just recess appoint a bunch of people, if say, the Senate wasn’t making bogus appearances because refusing to recess might make the Republicans mad or some such shit.
In the long run I doubt it matters, but in the short run it’s a pain, because of our chickenshit D majority. (I am wondering if Tom Harkin decided to bail partly because nothing was going to be happening for at least two years.)
Ditto for the electoral college changes in VA (and soon to be other states): if Republicans think they can take the state outright, will they just try to change the system back?
Sure. I doubt they will because they’re going to lose VA over the long run, so no reason to switch back until the D’s take control of the state lege.
max
[‘I think we should totally roll with this (I have thought this all along) and we should start introducing bills to switch to simple proportional division in every red state. We might as well get a couple of EV’s out of AR or WV.’]
Emma
@MikeJ: See this is how I see it. Get someone in as “acting” head, then delegate all the powers of the head to him. Issue all decisions under the president’s signature and to hell with it.
Jay S
@Brachiator: Consider the source. Natural News is anti-vax.
RepubAnon
It isn’t the end of recess appointments, it just makes them impossible unless one party controls both the House and the Senate.
If I recall correctly, the Democrats blocked some of W’s more egregious appointments via the pro-forma session trick (thus avoiding going into recess). Pro-forma sessions can be forced if either the House OR the Senate chooses to stay in session (the other half of the Congress must then also stay in session.) Thus, if the Democrats control both the Senate and the House, Congress can go into recess despite the Republicans’ objections – and the President can side-step Republican filibusters with recess appointments.
President Obama’s idea that Congress isn’t really in session unless a quorum is present was a nice try – and I’m surprised that the court didn’t dismiss it as a “political question.” It’s a pity that President Bush didn’t try that logic – the DC Court of Appeals might have ruled differently for a Republican president.
MikeJ
@Emma: And tell the senate, “fuck you, I’m not even sending you nominees.” That would be more emotionally satisfying, but less politically useful. Better to lay the blame at the feet of the senate. But still fun to think about the hissy fit they’d have.
Emma
@MikeJ: Yeah, well. Sometimes one dreams of the numbers of EMTs that would be needed…
Frankensteinbeck
@Jay S:
And last I checked, 1.5 is nearly 60% of 2.7. The article is idiotic. I’m guessing the actual truth is that a different set of flu viruses are going around this year than predicted, but there’s so little information in that article it’s hard to tell. News flash, vaccine scaremongers: Old people and children dying of flu is WHY WE VACCINATE. It’s a much more dangerous disease than your adult who’s just coughing for two weeks thinks!
Schlemizel
I’m stunned you even have to ask. Assuming the Dems tried to foil the will of a President Rmoney (who took office despite losing the popular vote by 5 million & only won the EC because of Gerrymandering) they would find a judge who will overturn this decision on a technicality. They have to be praying the Obama Admin does not push this to the USSC.
As for unfucking the the EC in states that they have fucked you may notice that goopers in state that are reliabily red are not rushing to institute this ‘democratic awaking’. OF COURSE they would undo it in a heart beat
Hill Dweller
@RepubAnon: But the nominees in question were for the NLRB. The NLRB needs three members for a quorum. Without a quorum, the NLRB can’t do anything. Republicans don’t like the NLRB, so they refuse to confirm enough members for it to function. It’s essentially nullification.
Everyone I’ve read seems to think it will get overturned.
Brachiator
@Jay S:
Yeah, I just wondered why anyone would waste time pasting this crap here.
eemom
I might try to answer this question, but I’m gonna have to rest a while first. The degree of ignorance regarding judicial process it manifests, even for a non-lawyer, is exhausting just to look at.
ETA: for starters, and if one were to, oh, actually want to learn something about this issue rather than just jerking around with idle internet bullshit on a boring Saturday afternoon, go look up “rehearing en banc.”
Jay S
@Frankensteinbeck: The comments on the article pointed out the authors were innumerate.
Ben Franklin
@Brachiator:
Yeah, I just wondered why anyone would waste time pasting this crap here.
I wanted your input as the Greatest Bean Counter in the History of H&R Block.
Woodrowfan
@Ben Franklin: A bullshit conspiracy site. gee, thanks. they also claim the “Batman shootings” were staged, etc. etc. take it to Inforwars. we’re not buying that crap here.
Maude
@eemom:
#27, Thank you for that. I didn’t know what to look up to find out what Obama can do next.
Doug Galt
@eemom:
So that’s a “yes”?
NotMax
Well, it was a 3-judge panel, not the total court, so it has a ways to go to wend its way upward through the system, and could well be reversed if heard by the full court.
Too, the ruling of the panel was directed only to the single case being examined (NLRB appointees).
As to the 2nd question: Yes, especially if it is deemed to provide stronger numbers.
danielx
Perhaps I am too cynical, but after observing the last twenty years, I think not. To paraphrase that great philosopher Bart Simpson, I’m trying to think of a way to respond to these questions other than IOKIYAR…but I can’t.
If circumstances change, they’ll find some Federalist Society asshole of a judge (or as many as they need) to give them the decision and outcome they want.
Ohmmade
It is my understanding that the house was the body who pulled the pro-forma trick. Not the senate.
gene108
@efgoldman:
I think the 13th Amendment pretty much made Dredd Scott moot, by abolishing slavery and making it unambiguous that government could no longer support slavery.
Jay S
@Brachiator:
My guess would be trolling.
ETA Of course that’s what not why. A treatise on the motivation of trolling is beyond my expertise.
Michael
1) This may be reheard en banc and reversed
2) If its not reheard, or its reheard but upheld, it will go up to the Supremes, because its an explicit Circuit Split. It certainly can’t be the case that the NLRB’s rulings are valid in the 2nd Circuit (NY-VT-CT) but invalid in D.C. The Supremes would have to decide it.
3) If the Supremes decided it on the same grounds as the D.C. Circuit, that’s a Constitutional interpretation of the meaning of “happening” and “the Recess” in the Constitution itself. Congress can’t legislate that away; it’d have to amend the Constitution.
4) The only Court that could overrule the Supreme Court is the Supreme Court, which is unlikely to happen, because those cases would never make it up back to the Supremes. If they held that the only way/time to have a recess appointment is if the vacancy itself begins during the recess, then nobody would both trying to recess appoint in other circumstances.
5) So the only way around this would be to time all resignations and recess appointments to occur during the intersession recess — which wouldn’t be beyond the pale, except obviously for things like illness that you can’t really time.
Ted & Hellen
Gosh Doug…I don’t know…why don’t you tell us?
NotMax
What a growing (in influence and volume if not strictly in size) slice of the (Borkean?) right is after, I have been convinced for some time, is to overturn Marbury v. Madison.
Ted & Hellen
@Schlemizel:
Do you think the Dems will do this? IF not, WHY not?
CaseyL
@MikeJ:
Can he do that? How much can he do that?
IMHO, during his first term Obama had a too-careful regard for normative institutional procedures. He didn’t wanted to take extraordinary measures to staff his Administration even when it was obvious the GOP refusal to confirm nominees was meant to cripple entire agencies from being able to do their job (I think the DOJ is still critically understaffed).
He seems to be taking a more assertive and combative approach for his second term. If this decision stands, it’ll be a bit of a test for him: what’s more important? Preserving the Constitutional norm of Congressional advise-and-consent for Executive appointments, or overcoming GOP nihilism to govern effectively?
Johnny Coelacanth
“IF not, WHY not?” because the courts weren’t packed with Democratic/liberal judges during the Bush admin.
brantl
@Ted & Hellen: D-bagging as a profession isn’t doing your reputation any good.
Brachiator
@gene108:
Not just the 13th Amendment.
This is again, where I think Lincoln is such a wonderful film. The Emancipation Ploclamation and even the 13th Amendment were only a start. The abolition of slavery raised essential questions about equality and citizenship that could only be fully resolved with the later post-Civil War amendments.
Ben Franklin
@Brachiator:
This is again, where I think Lincoln is such a wonderful film
Are you equally in love with ZD30, for similar reasons? I should think someone with your keen eye for detail and your myopic absence of peripheral vision would put them on an equal plane.
protothad
As someone might have already pointed out, the ruling did not do away with recess appointments… at most it narrowed what “in recess” means. Worst case, it limits a President to only making appointments in between full sessions rather than during intra-session recesses. I think it is too early to panic.
Closeted epistemic (formerly Lojasmo)
@Brachiator:
Because he’s a fucking moron.
Ben Franklin
@Closeted epistemic (formerly Lojasmo):
Heh. Praise from Caesar.
JasonF
@RepubAnon:
Even if one party controls the White House and both Houses of Congress, it still makes recess appointments virtually a dead letter. Judge Sentelle’s opinion didn’t just say that the appointment must occur during a recess between sessions. It also interpreted the word “happen” in the Recess Appointments Clause of the Constitution to mean that the vacancy must arise during the recess. In other words, if Congress is in session when a vacancy opens up, that vacancy can not be filled by recess appointment, even if Congress goes into recess the next day and stays in recess for two years. Under those circumstances, the vacancy remains until Congress goes back into session and approves an appointment. This is why the filibuster deal is so important — with a few exceptions, it ends the ability to filibuster nominees.
patroclus
I didn’t think Lincoln was that great a film, but I like that Sally Field, I REALLY like her.
Lol
@MikeJ:
That only works for cabinet posts. The NRLB and the CFPB by law can’t do shit without someone in the position. Ditto for judges.
Closeted epistemic (formerly Lojasmo)
@Ted & Hellen:
FIxed.
Closeted epistemic (formerly Lojasmo)
@Ben Franklin:
Throw him to the lions.
Woodrowfan
@Closeted epistemic (formerly Lojasmo): Poor lions…
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Ben Franklin: Talk about a horrible understanding of Bayesian statistics, or even fundamental statistics.
Ben Franklin
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
You mean, as in placebo?
Brachiator
@Ben Franklin:
RE: This is again, where I think Lincoln is such a wonderful film
Well, yes, as a matter of fact, I loved the scenes in Lincoln where Abe water boarded those pesky abolitionists. Just before he went out to do some vampire slaying.
And you know what? It’s a known certain historical fact that Lincoln was the first president to get his flu shots.
Also protected him against vampires, doncha know.
BTW, you get bonus points for the absolute verbal confusion of “keen eye for detail and your myopic absence of peripheral vision.” Talk about your rhetorical macular degeneration.
Somebody should keep an eye on you.
Ben Franklin
@Brachiator:
Well, your predisposed approval of the direct link between UBL’s apprehension and the torture advocacy, seems to delight you enough to give you no pause, should Abe have used those techniques. Amirong?
Bean-counters love cost effectiveness and conservative ideology.
Brachiator
@Ben Franklin:
No, you’re just making shit up.
But thanks for playing.
No consolation prize for you, though.
Ben Franklin
@Brachiator:
You didn’t see the direct link in ZD30….
In the Land of Myopia, the Blind Man is King.
But I don’t expect you to get it. The vision thing, you know…
Xecky Gilchrist
The whole anti-vax thing will take care of itself in a while. I just feel sorry for all the people who get infected or otherwise endangered by the dumbasses before they die off.
yutsano
@Ben Franklin: Such a shame. No one is wise enough to see your clear vision and righteous moral certitue. It makes me wonder why you bother to lower yourself by posting here. We might get our unclean cooties on you.
Brachiator
@Ben Franklin:
It’s not that I don’t get it. It’s that I don’t care.
Ben Franklin
@Xecky Gilchrist:
That’s a good citizen…..take your Cipro like a man.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@KrisWV: Transvaginal Bob would not win Virginia. Especially after his recent machinations with the UVA Board of Visitors, his idiotic “plan” to eliminate the gasoline tax and replace it with an increased sales tax (and an increased tax on electric and hybrid cars) while using magic asterisks to claim that he’s raising a lot of money for transportation, etc., etc.
And if he signs a bill to end the ban on uranium mining at Coles Hill, he’ll have another national issue to tarnish his image.
I could be wrong, but presidential elections are a very different beast in VA than Governor/Lt. Governor/Attorney General elections. McDonnell won’t have a cake-walk, even if he seems to think he has a future in national politics. (He couldn’t even make the ballot as Rmoney’s Vice President, remember.)
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Ben Franklin
@yutsano:
You’re comments are funny.
Ben Franklin
@Brachiator:
It’s that I don’t care.
Yet you comment on things you don’t care about. It’s a wonder you can tear yourself away from the ledgers and spreadsheets you do care about.
Brachiator
@Ben Franklin:
RE: It’s that I don’t care.
Well, no, I was commenting about stuff that I care about, and took some time to respond to you.
So, once more, this is again, where I think Lincoln is such a wonderful film. The Emancipation Ploclamation and even the 13th Amendment were only a start. The abolition of slavery raised essential questions about equality and citizenship that could only be fully resolved with the later post-Civil War amendments.
Do you have anything to add?
Ben Franklin
@Brachiator:
Are you joking?
Brachiator
@Ben Franklin:
So, once more, this is again, where I think Lincoln is such a wonderful film. The Emancipation Ploclamation and even the 13th Amendment were only a start. The abolition of slavery raised essential questions about equality and citizenship that could only be fully resolved with the later post-Civil War amendments.
Do you have anything to add?
wasabi gasp
A whiter shade beyond the pale.
Unsympathetic
@Frankensteinbeck:
Coughing for longer than one week is whooping cough – a bacterial infection only curable via antibiotics – and actually not the flu at all.
Unsympathetic
@Ben Franklin:
Lies, as usual, from the homeopathic crowd.
“As of the first week in January 2013, most (91%) of the influenza viruses that have been analyzed at CDC are like the viruses included in the 2012-2013 influenza vaccine.”
Straight off CDC’s website.
Marshall
@efgoldman:
I think you have it backwards – Dred Scott reversed precedent, and was itself I believe never reversed (just rendered moot via Constitutional Amendment).
Marshall
I really don’t think that the Electoral College change will pass in Virginia.
mclaren
Since we now live in post-legal America, laws mean nothing if the authorities want them to. Clinton started this when he set up extraordinary rendition in gross violation of the 5th and 6th and 8th and 14th amendments, but Bush rammed through the full post-legal package, shredding the constitution entirely. Torture, kidnapping, warrantless wiretapping, all now legit in post-legal America.
Then Obama signed his own death warrant by confirming and solidifying and cementing in place Bush’s post legal violations of the constitution. Now that Obama has ratified the precedent of violating the constitution created by Bush, Republicans can legitimately claim that the constitution has no power and no meaning. So anything is now legal. If Obama can order American citizens murdered without a trial and without charges, and if Obama can sign off on collecting every American’s e-mails and phone calls and recording ’em in a giant data center in Nevada without a warrant, why can’t Republicans simply pass a law saying that the electoral college is illegitimate and the Republican presidential candidate won because it’s Tuesday and it’s raining?
The is the danger with throwing out the rule of law. Once you do it, what are the limits? Obama throws out the law, and his Republican opponents feel free to go further. It becomes a game of chicken — who can make the most outrageous claims and exert the most overreaching powers in gross violation of the constitution.
This will not end well, obots.
West Oakland original
Giant data center in Nevada, hunh? And where would that be? Where’d all the servers come from? Who runs it? What’s their w/ft2?
Full of it.
Fred
So how long before the thing drags up to SCOTUS? Maybe three years and ten months.
Another Halocene Human
@Ben Franklin: Antivaxer. Plonk!
sparrow
@Ben Franklin: that article is wrong, they don’t know how statistics work
divF
@West Oakland original: Mclaren is confusing the government data center with the one the Gottschalk arms cartel is in the process of installing in Nevada.
julie
Didn’t Bush do a bunch of these?