In a rare instance, the Supreme Court handed down a unanimous decision Thursday, striking down President Obama’s NLRB recess appointments. The decisions made by the board during the period of time Obama’s appointments served are all null and valid.
The court said Thursday that President Obama exceeded his recess appointment authority when he filled slots on the National Labor Relations Board back in 2012. The high court acknowledged the president’s recess appointment power, but said that the Senate’s three-day window of operation was too short.
“Under the standards set forth here, the Senate was in session during these pro-formal sessions at issue,” the court said. The ruling held the Senate “was in session and the Senate maintained power to conduct rules and business.”
Justice Stephen Breyer said in the majority opinion that a break has to last at least 10 days to be considered a recess under the Constitution.
“Three days is too short a time to bring a recess within the scope of the Clause. Thus we conclude that the President lacked the power to make the recess appointments here at issue,” Breyer wrote.
In other words, the president should have asked the Senate for a unanimous consent measure, which could have easily been granted. The justices said in their first-ever consideration of the Constitution’s recess appointments clause that only Congress gets to decide when it is in recess, not a king-like president, and that there was no recess when Obama acted despite his argument that they were.
The president, as usual, said he made the appointments because Republicans refused to allow the NLRB to function. But that’s irrelevant to the separation of powers, even if it was true. The president knew he could not get radical, controversial appointments through a Senate — even one controlled by Democrats — thus he tried to exceed his authority. However, now that Democrats have pulled the nuclear option, appointments can now clear the Senate on a simple majority vote.
Democrats are already crowing over the rules being invalid, but the Obama administration is to blame since they ignored the lower court’s ruling that held the same position of the high court. The D.C. Court of Appeals ruled the appointments unconstitutional and the subsequent decisions invalid. However, the Obama administration flatly ignored the ruling.
