[anigbrowl]

That trick of procedurally gavelling open a session and immediately closing it to avoid the recess disgusts me beyond words. The GOP basically opted to treat the Constitution as a dead letter through tricks such as these and refusing to even dignify Garland's nomination with a hearing. Besides the political ramifications I think it's sad that a guy who's widely regarded as a decent hardworking jurist will have his legal career remembered only as a political football.

[koolba]

Look it up. It was invented by Democrats, specifically Harry Reid I think.

Live by the sword, die by the sword ...

[chipperyman573]

Democrats used to hold the Republican party's stances and the Republican party used to hold the Democrat's. Saying that something was invented by Democrats is essentially saying it was invented by people who would agree with today's Republicans.

http://factmyth.com/factoids/democrats-and-republicans-switc...

http://www.livescience.com/34241-democratic-republican-parti...

https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-that-Democrats-used-to-be-t...

[koolba]

The point that I was making was about how traditions and accepted practices govern (no pun intended) how government is run. If one party opens up the option of blocking recess appointments (by having the Senate continuously open), then they can't complain when the opposition does the same.

On the flip side, I expect to see a lot of the reverse as well with large numbers of Democrats refusing to act on or otherwise stalling legislation as retribution for how Republicans have acted the past few years. We're in for a fun ride.

[mkohlmyr]

And Harry Reid (currently serving in office to my knowledge) had barely been born when that happened. So that is entirely irrelevant to his point.

[educatedsilly]

That "point" doesn't even rise beyond the kindergarden level of "but they started it". Even "nah" is sufficient to counter that kind of brainfart.

[anigbrowl]

I did - here's a decent summary: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12...

I agree that the Democrats made their bed on that one, but they were at least holding hearings for most of Bush's senior nominees rather than trying to obstruct all his appointments. The refusal to even hear a supreme Court nominee this year shocked me. It would be understandable if Scalia had died close to the election but his seat has been empty for nearly a year now.

[bmelton]

Not that I intend the conversation to devolved into "but the Democrats did..." and vice versa, but the only thing unique for Garland is the delay at that exact position.

Priscilla Owen was denied a vote for an entire presidential term[1].

[1] - http://www.frontpagemag.com/point/261878/democrats-blocked-b...

[akiselev]

No, Garland's situation is unique because no one has pulled this nonsense with the Supreme Court, regardless of how close to the election it was. Tit for tat politicking is usually reserved for the lower courts and Democrats were far more accomodating to Bush's nominations for the Supreme Court.

Priscilla Owen was retribution because the Republican senate refused to fill Garwood's seat during Clinton's second term (obstruction that lasted just as long as Owens, 97-01) and she was viewed as too conservative (contrary to what the the Frontpage Mag article says). They're not even in the same ballpark.

[Frondo]

Frankly speaking, who cares? Is that a good reason to govern badly, because someone else did so?

We should expect better from everyone, not just shrug and say "well, they started it."

[gutnor]

That seems to be the rule. Whatever past government set a lower standard, the new government can take that as useful approved governing tool.

Really people wonder why politician sometimes fight for nonsensical minor tweaks that look like a waste a taxpayer money, but that's exactly it. Most of the government way of working is ruled by tradition rather than law and new laws are created in case of abuse.

After a few cycle of those little games affecting both big parties, they will most likely get tired of it and vote a law that prevent that to ever happen again.

[koolba]

Exactly my point. A "nuclear" level of the same standoff is regarding changing cloture rules. The party in power can do it as a rule change (which can't be filibustered) but nobody has done so till now because they don't want to not be in power when that goes in effect.

[anigbrowl]

Amusingly enough now I am the one to tell you that Harry Reid did in fact do this in 2013, albeit for lower-court appointments. So I guess it was more of a tactical nuke than a strategic one, but that may well be cited as precedent next month. I think there's a high likelihood of the Senate doing exactly that at the beginning of the next term or soon after.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_option#Events_of_Novem...

[simonh]

"What about"-ism is the death knell of reasoned argument.

[seanmcdirmid]

Yep, and I expect the democrats to give Trump the hell that the republicans have given Obama, especially if they get back congress in 2018. There is no room for niceties anymore.

[akiselev]

Thankfully, the Republicans have been laying out the battle plans of obstruction for two decades. Already there are a bunch of state Attorney Generals frothing at the mouth to sue the Trump administration to stop everything from nominees due to conflict of interest to blocking deregulation and neutering Department secretaries, the same tactics used by Republicans to obstruct all manners of policy.

It's four more years of the same just with slightly different players and the Democrats already know what to do.

[cmdrfred]

The history of the democratic party leads me to believe you will be disappointed. We shall see.

[Confusion]

It was invented by the Republicans, back when they were called Democrats.

[bdhess]

The idea of recess appointments is an anachronism in an age with instant digital communications and airplanes.

[anigbrowl]

No it isn't. Congress is only in session part of the time. Lawmaking - as opposed to politicking - currently requires a quorum and that legislators actually go on the record with both arguments and votes. It's where the rubber of governance meets the road and politicians can't pander to all and sundry while shrugging off criticism by saying 'they misspoke' and so on, but must instead commit to some sort of position (even if they obfuscate that by engaging in bullshit legislative tricks like poison-pill amendments). When Congress is in session it's doing (in theory at least) the Nation's business. When it's in recess the politicians can rest, schmooze their constituents, and so on - conducting their own political business rather than the nation's.

Now all this sounds very fine and idealist, but for lawmaking to be valid and have credibility then there needs to be some sort of formality to the process so that the citizenry can find out what their elected representatives are actually doing on their behalf, eg by consulting the Congressional record. Of course much of what happens in the legislative chamber is theatrical most deals are negotiated and brokered behind closed doors, but the lack of accountability that inheres in such arrangements is why there is a requirement for formalities in the first place.

So because there are formal rules on how laws are made, whether Congress is in session or not does matter. When it's only being kept in session by a technicality without any actual legislative work being performed, that says to everyone looking that the party engaging in such behavior regards rules as an obstruction to be got around rather than a standard for governing their own behavior, and that attitude is likely to promulgate itself among the population in various ways.

If you think recess appointments are a silly anachronism, amend the constitution. Unfortunately, I feel there's a particular faction in the country that actively aims at the undoing of the union in favor of a weak federation of states or several regional confederacies. That would not be so bad if the USA were its own planet, but as it's an imperial-scale power sharing the world with several rivals and many smaller national and corporate actors, a deconstruction of the federal system will create all sorts of power vacuums, and you know how that turns out.

[zeveb]

> Unfortunately, I feel there's a particular faction in the country that actively aims at the undoing of the union in favor of a weak federation of states or several regional confederacies.

This is off-topic, but I don't think that the number of people who genuinely want to do what you describe is effectively none. I suspect that you're actually referring to people who want the government of the United States and the governments of the several states to actually obey the federal and state constitutions. They (and — full disclosure — I) would argue that things for which there's no constitutional provision (e.g. drug prohibition) simply shouldn't exist, or amendments should be passed to permit them.

[bdhess]

It's hard to reconcile your logic with Hamilton's from Federalist #67:

The ordinary power of appointment is confined to the President and Senate JOINTLY, and can therefore only be exercised during the session of the Senate; but as it would have been improper to oblige this body to be continually in session for the appointment of officers and as vacancies might happen IN THEIR RECESS, which it might be necessary for the public service to fill without delay, the succeeding clause is evidently intended to authorize the President, SINGLY, to make temporary appointments "during the recess of the Senate, by granting commissions which shall expire at the end of their next session."

Given the joint nature of appointments, and that the legislature is a co-equal branch of government, it seems reasonable that if the Senate would prefer to remain permanently in session so as not to diminish its authority, it's within its right to do so. And that an executive trying to make a recess appointment in this case is exactly the sort of "regard[ing] rules as an obstruction to be got around" that you seem to be railing against.

[anigbrowl]

I disagree, but I applaud the high quality of your argument.

it seems reasonable that if the Senate would prefer to remain permanently in session so as not to diminish its authority, it's within its right to do so

Legally yes, politically no. There's no quorum so it's not possible to transact any legislative business and everyone knows this. That gap between the procedural state and reality delegitimizes the procedure through its self-evident falsity.

If the public perceives the government to be a sham, why keep obeying it? I suggest to you that the emergent political reality is that the constitution is becoming a dead letter and that the Declaration of Independence more closely mirrors national sentiment.

[bdhess]

But that gets back to my original point about cell phones and airplanes. If the modern age, if there were an item that Senate leadership deemed sufficiently important, they could call the Senate back from non-recess recess and get their quorum in a matter of days.

Edit: it's also worth noting that serving in the Senate was originally a part-time occupation; recesses of several months were common until the 1930s. That's a very different case than in 2016, where the longest break was five weeks.

[Dylan16807]

If they were actually in session it would be fine. It's faking it that's awful.

A recess appointment seems fair here to me. It's not the rules that the president would be working around, it's a failure of congress to act.

Both sides are supposed to have power here. Ideally if either side refuses to do their job for long enough, the other one should be able to install a temporary appointee.

[ptero]

I guess no politics week ended :(. Can we please bring it back.