[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.