Trump makes unprecedented threat to adjourn both chambers of congress

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Interesting. It is a power of the office, just not used before. Given these are unprecedented times, and he needs these vacancies that the Congress has been ignoring for three years filled in these unprecedented times, it makes sense to use legal means to assemble the people you need.
 
He might test the provision. It is not 100% clear if it can do what he wants.
If you take everything in isolation, I admit, that is a good Trump strategy.
Declaring TOTAL AUTHORITY over the states and a radical move to remove Senatorial confirmation in 24 hours is a better context.
All while insisting America is going back to work when Senators like Kennedy admit on TV ," that of course means more death."
( See Japan).
If you review the numbers, " Congress ignoring," seems specious.
Right now Trump has more judges confirmed in 3 years that Obama did in 8. That’s an objective number you can just ogle. There might be a need if you identify one, but there is no blame.
 
None of that really matters, though does it. Either he can do it, or not. That is a legal question.

Whether or not it is prudent is resolved by how people vote in November.
 
Why not… The congress, which is supposed to be running the country spends all it’s time pandering to mass media, hidden agendas/contributors and the immoral.

These four year serial job seekers only care about how they’re perceived.
 
Maximus1 said:
If you review the numbers, " Congress ignoring," seems specious.
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According to the PDF I linked, the time it takes Trump to get nominees confirmed is not at all abnormal. In 3 of Obama’s years, the average wait time was longer.
 
Curiously, it was Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, who controls the chamber’s calendar. He began holding pro formas early in Mr Trump’s term to block just that: recess appointments, opting to ensure his chamber would have a say in vetting potential Trump administration officials……………………………Curious indeed.
 
That is a scary thought. Can a mob, 3-5 million voters less than the opposition, FUNDEMENTALLY alter the Ballance of power in our government structure.
That has been dystopian since reconstruction and now is about 50-50.
 
This is true.
It is also true that Mitch enjoys a gravy train via his Secretary wife that Trump maintains control over.
You can’t count on Mitch
 
Trump issues a Kingly proclamation and Mitch and Minority leader obey. In the last three years Mitch has been Trump’s ministerial esnard.
 
I read somewhere else that recess appointments would only last until January 2021. Regardless of the merits, and given the current situation with the courts (many are shut down for all but necessary criminal things and civil emergencies), I wonder if any of the hypothetical recess appointments would even render an opinion on anything. It seems to me it would be June at best before a recess appointment could start working, and federal cases are, you know, often pretty complex.

I also read that it had been contemplated by Wilson, Taft, and FDR, but not attempted, so it is maybe not completely unprecedented.

It seems to me the larger issue is the liceity of the ‘pro forma’ sessions specifically to prevent recess appointments, which could be a legit complaint, but apparently that has already passed SC muster previously. I am relying on summaries, so who knows.
 
The ship sailed years ago when the Democrats changed the Senate voting rules for federal judicial nominees. All bets are now off, thanks to their immaturity. The republicans had contemplated the same thing in 07 and declined to do so.

Anything done that seems to breach protocol or longstanding tradition can be laid at their feet.
 
The Atlantic article points out the conflict between the different clauses at work. The first clause cited seems to give the President the power, but the other clause muddies the waters considerably. The conflict may provide the best explanation why other presidents just as frustrated as Trump did not try it. Think about FDR for instance: does anyone think his attempt to pack the Supreme Court was his only venture into new presidential power territory? Yet he shied away from this remedy.

If Trump tries it, it would likely have to go to the Supreme Court. My guess is Roberts would side with the liberal wing and it would go 5-4 against Trump.

While Trump has a legitimate beef about his appointees being held up, he has to be careful about setting precedents that can be used by the other party when they’re in power. There is some history of one party pushing the envelope that set precedents the other party used against them when they took over. A good recent example being the Democrat-dominated Senate that dumped the filibuster rule for federal judicial appointments in 2013, only to find the Republicans using that back at them when they took over in 2016. The Democrats gnashed their teeth considerably on that point but they really only had themselves to blame.
 
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Dr_Meinheimer said:
Anything done that seems to breach protocol or longstanding tradition can be laid at their feet.
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It is difficult to make sense out of an attempt to lame Trump’s contemplated assault on a change in the Senate’s rules. It might be argued that the Republican’s change to Senate rules on the voting for Supreme Court Justice is related, to what the Democrats did, but, in reality, the Republicans had a choice: roll-back rules changes that the y didn’t like, or go to greater lengths in what they ostensibly did not like. They chose the latter course. All on their own.
 
dvdjs said:
Does he honestly?
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Every president is entitled to have the people he wants to work for him. He is also entitled to fire the people he wants to fire. Every president before Trump exercised that prerogative.

That said, the Constitution specifically provides for the Senate to have oversight of the appointment process, though not the firing process. The history of appointments is rife with conflict between the president and the Senate. But you act like this never happened before Trump. Or like Obama didn’t try to pull his own end runs around the process.

If there’s a problem, it isn’t with the honesty as you assume. The problem is that the Senate isn’t going along with him as has often happened before Trump. To which I would suggest that the process is working as designed. When your favored Democrat candidate succeeds to the presidency some day, he can expect similar resistance from a Republican Senate. People will scream about it and I’ll give the same answer: the process is working as designed.
 
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