Seeker of Truth
04-25-2003, 02:36 PM
Recess Time
With Senate Democrats taking obstructionism to new levels, the president should re-read Article II, Section 2, Paragraph 3.
by Hugh Hewitt
04/23/2003 12:00:00 AM
THE LEFT EDGE of the Senate Democratic caucus has taken control of the judicial-nomination process and has forced the entire Senate into what is, at best, an extra-constitutional swamp. With their filibuster of D.C. Circuit Court nominee Miguel Estrada, their threatened filibusters of Fifth Circuit nominees Priscilla Owen and Charles Pickering, and their obstruction of other nominees such as John Roberts, Carolyn Kuhl, and a half-dozen Sixth Circuit nominees, Senate Democrats have decided it is good policy to wreck a judicial nomination and confirmation process that has worked for more than two centuries.
The radical agenda of the Senate Democrats has escaped a great deal of attention, though it surely played a role in their historic defeats in November 2002 and will do so again in the more than half-dozen referendums on incumbent Democratic Senators looming in November 2004. The temptation to let the likes of Tom Daschle, Harry Reid, Patty Murray, Blanche Lincoln, and Chuck Schumer hang themselves on their extremist approach must be huge, but President Bush and his advisers would be better served by aggressively defending the Constitution at every step. There are many ways to do this, including a jam-down of new Senate rules with 51 votes. But a way-station to such a melt-down is found in the president's recess appointment power.
Article II, Section 2, Paragraph 3 provides: "The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session."
Thus the president can fill every judicial vacancy that presently exists, though these appointments will lapse in the fall of 2004. Nominees have traditionally been reluctant to fill such temporary posts as the Senate guarded its confirmation power jealously and was likely to turn a cold-shoulder to the recess appointees in much the way that the NFL veterans shunned the temporary players who took the field during their strike.
More (http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/002/587tloaa.asp)
With Senate Democrats taking obstructionism to new levels, the president should re-read Article II, Section 2, Paragraph 3.
by Hugh Hewitt
04/23/2003 12:00:00 AM
THE LEFT EDGE of the Senate Democratic caucus has taken control of the judicial-nomination process and has forced the entire Senate into what is, at best, an extra-constitutional swamp. With their filibuster of D.C. Circuit Court nominee Miguel Estrada, their threatened filibusters of Fifth Circuit nominees Priscilla Owen and Charles Pickering, and their obstruction of other nominees such as John Roberts, Carolyn Kuhl, and a half-dozen Sixth Circuit nominees, Senate Democrats have decided it is good policy to wreck a judicial nomination and confirmation process that has worked for more than two centuries.
The radical agenda of the Senate Democrats has escaped a great deal of attention, though it surely played a role in their historic defeats in November 2002 and will do so again in the more than half-dozen referendums on incumbent Democratic Senators looming in November 2004. The temptation to let the likes of Tom Daschle, Harry Reid, Patty Murray, Blanche Lincoln, and Chuck Schumer hang themselves on their extremist approach must be huge, but President Bush and his advisers would be better served by aggressively defending the Constitution at every step. There are many ways to do this, including a jam-down of new Senate rules with 51 votes. But a way-station to such a melt-down is found in the president's recess appointment power.
Article II, Section 2, Paragraph 3 provides: "The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session."
Thus the president can fill every judicial vacancy that presently exists, though these appointments will lapse in the fall of 2004. Nominees have traditionally been reluctant to fill such temporary posts as the Senate guarded its confirmation power jealously and was likely to turn a cold-shoulder to the recess appointees in much the way that the NFL veterans shunned the temporary players who took the field during their strike.
More (http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/002/587tloaa.asp)