Trump’s Recess Demand Is Early Test of Prospects for More Radical Second Term

The New York Times ^ | Nov. 12, 2024, 5:55 p.m. ET | Charlie Savage

[E. Pluribus Unum]

President-elect Donald J. Trump’s demand that Senate Republicans surrender their role in vetting his nominees poses an early test of whether his second term will be more radical than his first.

Over the weekend, Mr. Trump insisted on social media that Republicans select a new Senate majority leader willing to call recesses during which he could appoint personnel, a process that would allow him to unilaterally sidestep the confirmation process. His allies immediately applauded the idea, intensifying pressure on G.O.P. lawmakers to acquiesce.

The demand to weaken checks and balances and take for himself some of the legislative branch’s usual power underscored Mr. Trump’s authoritarian impulses. While there is no obvious legal obstacle to Mr. Trump’s request, it would be an extraordinary violation of constitutional norms. There is no historical precedent for a deliberate and wholesale abandonment by the Senate of its function of deciding whether to confirm or reject the president’s choices to bestow with government power.

Ed Whelan, a legal commentator who has supported Mr. Trump’s judicial nominees but been critical of Mr. Trump himself, sounded the alarm on Tuesday in an essay for the conservative National Review. The once and future president appeared to be contemplating “an awful and anti-constitutional idea,” he wrote.

Recess appointees who take office without Senate confirmation wield the full powers of their offices until the end of the next Senate session. Each congressional session typically lasts a year, so anyone who receives a recess appointment from Mr. Trump in early 2025 could remain in office until the end of 2026.

The Constitution normally requires the president to obtain the Senate’s consent to appoint top officials to the executive branch,...

[E. Pluribus Unum]

From further down in the article:

The Supreme Court has said that Senate recesses of at least 10 days are sufficient to allow a president to sidestep confirmation for appointees. To set Mr. Trump up, the majority leader would have to be willing to bring up a motion to adjourn for at least that amount of time. The Senate would then hold a simple majority vote.

If no adjournment motion passes, the chamber would remain in session. If Republicans hold a narrow 53-47 majority, it would take four Republicans to break away and join Democrats to thwart Mr. Trump’s proposal.

The Assistant Democrats will be forced to reveal themselves early.

[SauronOfMordor]

Another move would be to exempt confirmation votes from filibuster, which could be done by simple majority vote.

[WeaslesRippedMyFlesh]

Hey NYT, you’re shting on every Trump voter with “extreme” stuff.

Trump has a mandate to move his America First agenda forward.

You’re a bunch of ftard communists and the majority of American see you and loathe you. You’re finished. It’s only a matter of time.

Thank you though and please keep it up.

Keep solidifying our base.

[Nervous Tick]

>> early test of whether his second term will be more radical than his first.

Well I certainly hope so!! That’s what We The People hired him to do!

Start with appointing top notch allies to key roles, BAMN including recess appointments.

Finish up your “eight years of success” second term by firing bazookas into that mega-glass New York Times building, Generalissimo Trump!

Okay, just kidding on that last bit. Maybe. 😉

[glorgau]

> ...extraordinary violation of constitutional norms.

This never going into recess stuff is rather recent also.

[MAGAthon]

interesting when you get down to Trump:

Wikipedia: Recess appointment
Presidents since George Washington have made recess appointments...

Almost every president has used recess appointments to appoint judges, over 300 such judicial recess appointments before 2000, including ten Supreme Court justices...

According to the Congressional Research Service, President Ronald Reagan made 240 recess appointments (average 30 per year) and President George H. W. Bush made 77 recess appointments (average 19 per year)...

President Bill Clinton made 139 recess appointments (average of 17 per year)…

President George W. Bush made 171 recess appointments (average of 21 per year)…

President Barack Obama made 32 recess appointments (through February 1, 2015), all to full-time positions...

***In August 2017, nine pro forma sessions were set up to block President Donald Trump from making recess appointments...

On April 15, 2020, while Congress was holding pro forma sessions due to the recess during the COVID-19 pandemic, President Trump threatened to adjourn both houses of Congress in order to make recess appointments for vacant positions such as the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and the Director of National Intelligence.[11] However, the U.S. Constitution only grants the president the authority to adjourn Congress if it is unable to agree on a date of adjournment, and both Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell indicated that they would not alter the planned date of January 3, 2021...

Regardless of the Senate continuing to hold pro forma sessions, on January 4, 2012, President Obama appointed Richard Cordray and others as recess appointments...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recess_appointment

[SauronOfMordor]

So the rules only apply to Republican presidents, and Democrats can ignore at will.