The Supreme Court to take up Barack Obama’s recess appointments tomorrow

    Over one year ago Barack Obama made four recess appointments even though the Congress was not technically in recess. Republicans held the Congress open using a gimmick called pro forma. Pro forma is nothing new, in fact Harry Reid used this tactic to block at least one Bush nominee and bragged about it. Of course he changed his tune about pro forma when the Republicans used it against Barack Obama. Nancy Pelosi also hailed Barack Obama’s decision to ignore the power of the Congress:

 this is a political gimmick designed to ensure the president does not appoint people without the consent of the Congress but it is not without precedent and in fact this was a tool which was used against President Bush by the Democrats when Barack Obama was in the Senate. Harry Reid stated that he supported Barack Obama’s decision even though while he was the Senate majority leader he bragged about using   pro forma to block President Bush from making recess appointments:

I had to keep the Senate in pro-forma session to block the Bradbury appointment. That necessarily meant no recess appointments could be made

  And yet he now says that Barack Obama was justified in ignoring the pro forma session and precedent, but he is not the lone Democrat supporting Barack Obama’s decision; Nancy Pelosi has also come out in favor of Barack Obama’s decision:

I’m very proud of the president of the United States and the appointments that he made yesterday.  I’m very glad that he did and it’s important for the American people to know what challenges face him as he tries to provide leadership for the agencies of government, which have been voted on by the Congress, are part of our public policy

  Do you think Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi would have felt the same way if George Bush had stripped them of the power to approve political appointments? Never before has a president unilaterally decided he had the authority to declare the Congress in recess, this was an unprecedented power grab. Several lower courts have ruled that these appointments were unconstitutional and it has been appealed to the Supreme Court, which will take up the arguments tomorrow.

  The importance of this case cannot be understated, as the article linked directly above states:

Nothing less than the boundaries of executive power are at stake Monday as the Supreme Court considers whether President Obama violated the Constitution during his first term.
 
Oral arguments slated for Monday will center on a trio of recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) that were deemed unconstitutional by lower courts.

If they uphold the decision, experts say the justices could endanger hundreds of NLRB decisions.
 
Even more significant are the ramifications for future presidents, with the court poised either to bolster or blunt the chief executive’s appointment powers.
 
“Rulings like this have implications that last for centuries,” said Michael Lotito, an employment and labor attorney and co-chairman of Littler Mendelson’s Workplace Policy Institute.

  This is quite possibly the most important case to be heard by the Supreme Court since the disastrous Obamacare ruling and everyone should be paying attention closely to how the Supreme Court rules no matter if you are a Republican or a Democrat for this could have implications for years to come.