Right to Work group files a lawsuit against Barack Obama’s recess appointments
It’s on!
When three of Barack Obama’s recent recess appointees joined an existing lawsuit, arguing in favor of new regulations on small businesses, Mark Mix of the National Right to Work Foundation filed a lawsuit challenging the legality of Barack Obama’s recess appointments. He claims that Barack Obama did not have the constitutional authority to appoint these nominees because while the House was in recess the Senate was not, so this means the new appointees could not join the fight for these new regulations, and because of this the National Labor Relations Board did not have the necessary quorum needed to move the lawsuit forward.
Here is some of what Mark Mix had to say in filing this court challenge:
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, they can’t participate in the lawsuit, Mix told The Daily Caller. And without their participation the board does have the quorum needed to implement the new regulations that the foundation opposes.
When the president installed the three officials on Jan. 4, he justified his move by saying the Senate was in recess.
The U.S. Constitution allows the president to bypass the usual Senate debate and vote to appoint officials when the Senate is in recess.
But “the Senate was never in recess, notwithstanding what the justice department has said,” Mix said
The president’s claim that he can determine when the Senate is in recess is a constitutional issue, he added, because it is an effort to expand the president’s ability to appoint people whose nominations elected Senators oppose.
If not struck down by a court, “that is a dramatic endangerment of the checks and balances in our constitution,” Mix told TheDC.
When Barack Obama named these recess appointments he ignored years of precedent–a political gimmick known as pro forma Congress; the Congress adjourns but does not recess thereby blocking recess appointments by the president. This was a tactic which has been accepted by both parties and in fact Harry Reid once bragged about using pro forma to block President Bush from doing what Barack Obama has done.
No president has pushed these boundaries before; Barack Obama has entered unchartered waters in relation to executive power and now it will be up to the courts to decide if he was within his power to do so or whether he overstepped his constitutional authority.
America's Watchtower 
Since our political “leaders” are disinclined to challenge Obama’s lawlessness, I hasten to enthusiastically commend the NRWF for its principled leadership and patriotism.
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For some reason Grassley said this had to start in the courts, I am not sure why he felt the Congress couldn’t do anything about it.
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What exactly would the Congress do?
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You are right, there really isn’t much the Congress can do. Normally I would say the Congress could move to defund this board but from what I have read the Congress willingly gave up this authority and the board is funded by the fed outside of the Congress. If this is true the Congress has nobody to blame for this but themselves.
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Is that what we’re down to? A single judge deciding an issue that affects every working American?
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Sadly it apears that way, it’s either that or a single politician making that same decision and either way that isn’t the way the system is supposed to work.
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It’s always this was as a case makes its way through the courts.
We also have a very unhealthy situation in the Senate, where a single Senator can obstruct nominations and other business – anonymously. There’s always an effort to ban this practice of “Senatorial courtesy” that enables Senators to place holds on legislation, but it rarely gets anywhere.
Every time there’s talk about how one judge, or one Senator, or one bureaucrat, can make decisions that affect all Americans, I’m reminded of that joke where the different parts of the body are arguing about which is the most important – you know, the brain, the eyes,, the ears, the hands, the toes, and other parts of the body – I know you guys have heard the rest.
Anyway, you guys take good care, and may God bless us all!
TGY
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It is very strange that we allow one Senator to hold up legislation and I don’t understand how this is possible. It is unhealthy, as you said, and allows whoever it is who holds up the legislation to hold out for the “givebacks” most of us are opposed to.
And yes, I do know which body part in that joke ends up getting what they want.
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I hope they push this to fruition. Someone, something needs to challenge Obama and his way of governing. Someone needs to put him back in his place and slow his distorting of how a President is supposed to do his job.
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I agree because the more he is allowed to get away with the more he will try to get away with.
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If every time Obama doesn’t follow the constitution we have to go to Court, we will never catch up. Years of litigation after the damage. it will be a boon for lawyers. Still I am glad somone is making the effort.
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Yeah, same thing with Obamacare. If it gets overturned next year it is still going to be difficult at this point because much of it has already been implemented.
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I always used to hear cons whining about libs using technicalities to stall the conservative agenda. I guess it’s okay when it’s the cons using the technicalities, eh? Sounds as if the Right to Work for Less people are benefiting from the status quo by there not being a quorum on the NLRB, and also from the NLRB not being able to participate in some lawsuit or other. Stalling progress.
It’s telling that the RTWFL folks aren’t calling for a resolution of their lawsuit – a tacit admission that they don’t think their case has much merit – but are cheering the gridlock in government caused by their fellow travellers’ hyperpartisanship.
Take good care, and may God bless us all!
TGY
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“Right to Work for Less”
Your bias destroys your argument before you even get it out there. You see that don’t you?
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You’re kidding, right?
This is a forum where unbiased people come to express what . . . things they read and and upon which they haven’t reached a conclusion?
As part of the lib minority here, I find it disingenuous on your part to suggest that those with opinions here had better keep them to themselves.
As to RTWFL, it’s labor’s long-time appelation for the movement because the average wage of non-exempt workers is consistently lower than that of workers in union-shop states, even the (many) non-union workers.
But give credit where credit is due – it’s simply amazing that they – the RTWFL crowd – could convince so many potential union members to support a position that is so inconsistent with their own best interests.
Take good care and may God bless us all!
TGY
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It works both ways TGY, I am sure you didn’t have a problem with pro forma when it was used to block Bush and Harry Reid certainly did not.
Three groups are now challenging this and more are expected to join so maybe this has more merit than you think it does.
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I must not have made myself clear earlier, Steve – sorry. I said that I reluctantly supported Reid and the Dems when they used the pro-forma gimmick to obstruct President Bush, but I also said that I’d have supported the President if he’d stood up to the Congress.
As would, I suspect, most of those here, even though they’re absolutely unbiased.
Take good care and may God bless us all!
TGY
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You may have supported Bush if he did this but I would say you would be the lone voice on the left if Bush had tried this. The left would have been up in arms if Bush did this yet people like Reid and Pelosi are supporting this move.
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The simple fact is that Obama is committed to punching the envelope – exactly what he promised to do. He is testing our established forms of constitutional and legislative policy making.
Sadly, again – once again, the misinformed are blind to the fact that his creeping incrementalism is moving us towards his end objective of socialism by undermining our system of checks and balances to eventually have a collective of all governmental entities under one central authority – the operative phrase, ignored by the shallow electorate on the left, who seem bereft of any critical thought process, is a “dictatorship of the proletariat’.
To those that disagree read “Alinsky’s Rulebook For Radicals,” Obama is following that tome outline to the letter….WM
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I agree, Barack Obama is consolidating power at an alarming rate and his supporters are all for it because they believe he represents them and their beliefs. They think that this will benefit them so they are not conserned with the ramifications of this down the road.
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I see the point… sort of. I guess what bothers me about this is that people say Obama subverted the law by making the appointments. Ok. But I also feel that the Republicans subverted the spirit of the law by meeting every three days just so they could prevent (they thought) Obama from making a recess appointment.
So, to me, the Republicans seem to be the ones most “in the wrong” because they were trying to make the minimum effort necessary to thwart the wishes of an elected official.
I’ve been pounded on for saying this because I keep getting told by Conservatives that it is the letter of the law by which we live, etc… but that’s just how I feel about it.
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Harrison, both parties have used the so-called “pro forma” session to deny the President his Constitutional right to make recess appointments. When Harry Reid employed the tactic to prevent President Bush from making recess appointments, if the President had stood up to the Democratic Senate the way President Obama stood up to its GOP minority, I’d have supported him, though Steve suggests I may have been like a voice in the wilderness.
For the here and now, yes, it’s the GOP that is cynically manipulating the Senate’s rules; in 2007 and 2008, though, that cynical manipulation was the tactic of the Democrats.
Take good care and may God bless us all!
TGY
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I agree with both you and TGY; there is no doubt that this is a political gimmick and it subverts the intent of the law but this is nothing new and Democrats have employeed this tactic in the past also. But it must be remembered that the whole intent of the recess appointment power of the president has been abused and is not consistent with the intent of the law in the first place. And yes, both parties are guilty of this as well.
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At the end of the day, then, they both suck!
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I can’t argue with you there!
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