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President Obama will elevate the controversy over his recess appointment powers to the highest level, with the National Labor Relations Board announcing Tuesday it will appeal to the Supreme Court a lower-court ruling that held his appointments to the board were illegal. That move will put the thorny case straight before the justices, who will have to decide whether Mr. Obama overstepped his constitutional powers when he did an end-run around Congress last year and named three board members — using his recess-appointment powers at a time when the Senate considered itself still in session. In January a three-judge panel...

In a provocative move, President Obama Wednesday re-nominated two controversial Democratic candidates to the National Labor Relations Board just weeks after a federal court invalided their recess appointments to the posts. Mr. Obama again nominated Sharon Block, a former Democratic Labor Department official, and Richard Griffin, a Democratic union lawyer, to serve on the NLRB

White House Condemns Court Ruling On 'Unconstitutional' Obama Appointments Spokesman says ruling heralded by Republicans' lawyers as 'stinging rebuke' to president is 'novel and unprecedented' 25 January 2013 The Obama administration is likely to appeal to the Supreme Court over its right to make direct appointments when Congress is in recess. Barack Obama breached the constitution when he bypassed Congress to make appointments to a labour relations panel, a federal appeal court ruled on Friday in a decision that was condemned by the White House as "novel and unprecedented". The judgement, from a three-judge panel of the US court of...

SENTELLE, Chief Judge: Noel Canning petitions for review of a National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or “the Board”)decision finding that Noel Canning violated section 8(a)(1) and (5) of the National Labor Relations Act . . .

Sometimes, Barack Obama acts like the Constitution does not apply to him and the Congress is an imaginary being. Friday, the United States Court of Appeals brought the president back to Earth and reminded him that that the Constitution’s Appointments Clause and the U.S. Senate are very much part of reality by voiding three of Obama’s recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board. The D.C. Circuit ruled that the president could not end-run the confirmation process merely because at the beginning of 2012 the U.S. Senate was meeting every three business days in, what lawyers call, pro forma session....

In case you missed it... Finally a good day for America, it's been a while.

Republican senators on Wednesday joined a lawsuit arguing President Obama violated the Constitution when he used his recess appointment powers earlier this year to fill several controversial jobs. The move elevates the stakes in what has been a simmering constitutional battle. The senators, led by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, have long argued the Senate was still in session, not in recess, when Mr. Obama made his move in January. They said the picks — to the National Labor Relations Board and to a top consumer advocacy post — are therefore illegal. “The Constitution empowers the Senate, not the president, to...

Complete title: Consumer Protection Financial Bureau Director Richard Cordray Doubted Constitutionality of His Own Appointment, Documents Uncovered by Judicial Watch Show “There is a chance…that the appointment would be invalidated by a court.” Cordray Told Staff His Short Stint “should give to each one of us…a fierce urgency to accomplish the work we are doing together.” (Washington, DC) –Judicial Watch, the organization that investigates and fights government corruption, announced today that it has obtained documents from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) that indicate the agency’s director, Richard Cordray, doubted the constitutionality of his own appointment. On January 4, 2012,...

Resist Obama/Reid's nomination power playBy Rick Manning - 03/14/12 03:56 PM ET Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) nomination power play under the guise of a created emergency on the federal bench is both absurd and dangerous. The truth is that Reid is setting up a constitutional crisis over the Easter congressional district work period allowing President Obama to “recess”-appoint a bevy of judges and others without the advice and consent of the Senate. The Constitution does not require that the Senate approve the president’s choices for the judiciary, and in fact, the Senate is supposed to be anything but...

Tuesday at AEI, four distinguished lawyers aggressively debated the constitutionality of the president’s recent "recess" appointments during the Senate's 2011-2012 pro forma sessions. First, Morton Rosenberg asserted that the president was explicitly violating the Constitution by making recess appointments when the Senate was in pro forma sessions, thereby avoiding recess by its own constitutional authority to develop its own rules. Douglas Kmiec countered that the Senate's creation of pro forma sessions simply to inhibit the executive branch violated the honest interface that the framers intended between the branches of government. David Rivkin Jr. concurred with Rosenberg's conclusion about the unconstitutionality...

The 2012 election year has just begun, and already controversies have swirled around a number of President Obama’s actions. Constitutional issues are at the forefront as the president seeks to improve his chances of reelection by delivering on his promises. But is the president violating the Constitution as he tries to implement his program of transformation? Constitutional attorney David Rivkin believes he is. The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) in Washington D.C. will be facilitating a discussion on one of the recent controversies, President Obama’s “recess appointments.” On January 4, 2012, President Obama made the following appointments: Richard Cordray as Director...

Republican senators announced Friday that they plan to challenge President Obama's recent controversial appointments in court. Thirty-nine GOP senators have signed onto a letter announcing their intention to file a joint amicus brief in a court challenge against Obama's recess appointments to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the National Labor Relations Board last month. "We refuse to stand by as this President arrogantly casts aside our Constitution and defies the will of the American people under the election-year guise of defending them," Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said in a statement. The White House has argued that the recess appointments...

The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform chaired by Darrell Issa (R-CA) is set to begin a hearing on the morning of February 1 on President Obama's recess appointments to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). During the hearing, titled "Uncharted Territory: What are the Consequences of President Obama's Unprecedented 'Recess' Appointments?", constitutional attorney David Rivkin will assert that the appointments are unconstitutional.

The chairman of the National Labor Relations Board plans to push for new rules that would give unions a boost in organizing members, despite an outcry from Republicans and business groups who say the board is going too far. Mark Pearce said he hopes the board will propose the rules soon, now that it has a full component of five members. President Barack Obama bypassed the Senate earlier this month to fill three vacancies...

Republican objections to President Obama's temporary appointments last week to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) haven't been unexpected. The board, by law, must consist of three members of one major party and two of the other. And so long as he remains in the White House, Democrats will enjoy an automatic majority. But at least two appointments may also be unconstitutional, say critics. That's because the president's referrals to the Senate of the two Democratic nominees, Sharon Block and Richard Griffin, were made during a period in which senators were not on official recess. Block, Griffin and the...

A right-to-work organization is taking the White House to court over the president’s controversial decision to install three new members on the National Board Relations board without Senate approval. The legal challenge came after the three new members approved a legal response in an existing lawsuit. The plaintiffs asked the judge on Friday to rule that their participation is invalid because President Barack Obama did not have the authority to appoint them. “We asked [the judge] to consider the question of whether they are constitutionally seated,” said Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Foundation. Without legitimate appointments,...

The National Right to Work Foundation filed a motion Friday that challenges the legality of President Obama’s recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The motion, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, is a joint action with the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace and the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB). It is the first legal action that questions the president’s recent recess appointments, which he made earlier this month over the fierce objections of Republican lawmakers. The president recess-appointed Richard Cordray as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, along with three...

The Department of Justice offered a defense on Thursday for President Obama’s controversial decision to make several recess appointments while Congress was in pro forma sessions. In a memo, Justice argued the pro-forma sessions held every third day in the Senate do not constitute a functioning body that can render advice and consent on the president’s nominees. It said the president acted consistently under the law by making the appointments.

Congressman Jeff Landry (R-LA) has just introduced the Executive Appointment Reform Act to reverse the Constitutional damage President Obama has done with his unprecedented “recess” appointments. Contact your Representative today by calling (202) 224-3121 to urge them to cosponsor and support Rep. Landry's Executive Appointment Reform Act and stand against President Obama’s abuse of the recess appointment process. The text of Rep. Landry's letter to his colleagues in the United States House of Representatives is below:

President Obama’s decision to recess appoint Richard Griffin and Sharon Block to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is but another example of the stark contrast between his actions as president and his words as a candidate. Obama promised the American people that if elected president he would change the tone of politics in Washington, D.C. and turn the economy around. He has done neither. He recess appointed labor radical Craig Becker after his nomination received bipartisan opposition, who together with Obama’s other nominees have poisoned the atmosphere of labor relations in the U.S. They have engaged in an unprecedented...