Posted on 12/02/2001 2:17:06 PM PST by Native American Female Vet
Congress used to staying all year in times of crisis but Republicans see conspiracy to stall nominees
By Jesse J. Holland, Associated Press, 12/2/2001
14:06
WASHINGTON (AP) Congress appears poised to skip the normal formal adjournment this month, taking just a recess while lawmakers return home. It's something the House and Senate used to do in times of national and global trouble.
With America is at war in Afghanistan, lawmakers say they want to be able to meet on a moment's notice. Some Republicans, however, see another motive.
Without a formal adjournment, President Bush will not have the power to make ''recess'' appointments that bypass the need for confirmation by a Democratic-controlled Senate.
''That may be what's behind this, trying to make it tough on the president so he can't run the country well,'' said Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
''There are a lot of games being played to try and embarrass this president so they can win seats next year. To me it's abysmal, abominable and downright cheap, but that's the way it is.''
Normally, Congress adjourns ''sine die'' Latin for without a date at the end of a legislative year. That brings an official end of to all business before returning in January for a new session.
Senators and House members can just go home without officially adjourning, giving them the option to reconvene without having to ask the president for a special session, Senate Historian Don Ritchie said. Past presidents have enjoyed periods of unilateral power when Congress is not in session.
''They've been very reluctant to call the Congress back into session, which would give the executive branch another branch to consult with instead of just being able to act on their own,'' Ritchie said. ''The executive branch feels it works fine without the legislative branch in town.''
Protecting their turf, lawmakers have become accustomed to keeping Congress formally in session during times of crisis. The first time Congress stayed all year was in 1940, while World War II raged in Europe.
''Although America wasn't involved at the time,'' Ritchie said, ''lawmakers felt that they needed to be in Washington just in case.''
The pattern has been repeated several times: in 1950, during the Korean War; in 1963, after the Kennedy assassination; in 1973, during Watergate; in 1979, during the Iran hostage crisis; in 1991, during the Gulf War; and in 1995, the first year of the Republican takeover of Congress.
''Republicans were in control of Congress that year, and didn't want to leave Washington and leave a Democratic president in charge,'' Ritchie said. Bill Clinton was president.
In addition to having the stage to himself when Congress adjourns, the president also gets to bypass Senate consideration of his nominations and place people he wants directly into federal judgeships and important policy positions.
Although not permanent, these recess appointments can run for more than a year, until Congress adjourns at the end of the next session. If the Senate does not ratify the president's appointments by then, they expire.
Clinton angered Republicans by using this power to appoint the first openly gay ambassador, the first black appeals court judge in a heavily southern judicial circuit and an affirmative action advocate to run the Justice Department's civil rights office after he was rejected by a Senate committee.
The appeals court judge, Roger Gregory, was the only one to keep his job once Bush took office.
Bush has had problems getting as many judicial nominations through the Senate as he would like. While he has nominated 64 judges, the Senate has confirmed 18 of them since June.
Hatch said the Bush administration has ''pretty much made the point that they're not going to do much in the way of recess appointments'' of federal judges.
But many other nominees also are hanging. Not counting the judicial nominations, U.S. attorneys, U.S. marshals and ambassadors, 67 presidential appointees await confirmation by the Senate.
Among them are Otto Reich to assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere Affairs and John Walters as White House drug policy director. The Senate could act as early as this week on Walters but Democrats have refused so far to even hold a hearing on Reich's nomination.
Too bad the House isn't controlled by Republicans.
The pattern has been repeated several times: in 1950, during the Korean War; in 1963, after the Kennedy assassination; in 1973, during Watergate; in 1979, during the Iran hostage crisis; in 1991, during the Gulf War; and in 1995, the first year of the Republican takeover of Congress.
What goes around...
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