Obama’s end run around Congress draws further review from Supreme Court

For the Supreme Court, whether President Obama’s recess appointments were legal could well rest on whether the justices side with Presidents Washington, Jefferson and Madison, or whether they stick with the 40 men who followed the founders.

The case the court will hear Monday has all the makings of a legal thriller — Congress battling the president, with the Supreme Court, sitting for its first oral argument of 2014, called to settle the spat.

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It’s also what lawyers call a “case of first impression,” meaning the justices have never ruled on this particular question, so there is no firm precedent to guide them.

Making the issue all the more delicious for Washington are the accusations of power grabs and political hypocrisy: Mr. Obama, who is claiming broad recess powers, objected to those very same powers when he was in the Senate and Democrats used the same questionable tactics in 2007 and 2008 to block President George W. Bush’s appointments.


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Supreme Court justices took a dim view Monday of President Obama’s claim of almost unlimited powers to appoint top government officials, saying he appeared to be breaking with the founders’ vision of separation of powers between the branches of government when he tried an end-run around the Senate in 2012.

Both liberal and conservative justices seemed skeptical of the president’s claim, though they struggled with how far to go in deciding the limits of a president’s recess appointment power.


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The White House on Monday predicted the Supreme Court would uphold President Obama's ability to make recess appointments after justices expressed doubts about the president's use of such tactics.

“In our view, we're confident the courts will uphold the president's authority,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said during his daily briefing with reporters.

The Supreme Court earlier Monday heard arguments over the president's ability to fill senior posts while the Senate was in recess. The dispute stemmed from controversial appointments the president made to the National Labor Relations Board in 2012 while the upper chamber was not in session.

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The nation’s highest court could dramatically rein in Obama’s authority to make appointments. Lower courts have already said Obama overstepped his authority in appointing members to the National Labor Relations Board during a congressional recess.

Republicans have accused the White House of circumventing Congress in an effort to appoint nominees more sympathetic to the president’s agenda.

And even some of Obama's allies on the court were skeptical of his actions.

Justice Elena Kagan, appointed by Obama, suggested it was the “Senate's role to determine whether they're in recess."

However, Senate Democrats have largely taken the matter into their own hands. Recently, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., employed the so-called nuclear option, essentially allowing a simple majority vote on Obama's non-Supreme Court nominees.

Washington Examiner

What is view of SCOTUS' "The Wise Latina"?

  


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Good answer.