Article 2, section 3 of the Constitution:

[shraby]

The President's powers:
He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper;................

Why couldn't Obama use this clause to keep Congress in session until such time as they take up the Supreme Court nominee?

[guillaumeb]

1. John Boehner believed in a three day work week. To force Congress to actually work

would constitute cruel and unusual punishment.

[thereismore]

2. Well, you know, the actual death penalty is not cruel and unusual, so, I'd say, giv'em hell,

Mr. President!

[Igel]

3. Does it say that he can keep them convened?

A lot of state governors have this authority--pull them together for a specified time and give them something to work on. They can only adjourn when they've resolved the issue (voting yes or no) or when the time's expired.

I see "convene" but not "hold hostage." And even then, state legislators have gone AWOL rather than provide a quorum. Governors can have them detained and brought to the capitol, but the last time I'm aware of that happening one side of the political spectrum went ape-shit crazy. That's a (R) governor with a large (D) contingent in the legislature, and it was (D) that went AWOL.


The other question is whether this is really extraordinary. We've had 3 SCOTUS nominees in the last 5 or 6 years, and lots of judges nominated. SCOTUS is just the top "C" in a hierarchy, and can go on perfectly fine with 8 judges. One year, apparently, a judge took a leave of absence (not recently, of course) and the SCOTUS survived.

What's at issue is whether we let the Senate set its own timeline, which is the right that we implicitly admit the President has. If President Obama had waited another month or two, few would be demanding that somebody make him eat his peas and do his job. It's his job. It's the Senate's job.

Another thing at issue is whether we insist that it's the President at the time of the vacancy that must have the right to appoint, rather than just "the President." We insist that Obama do the appointing, and consider it a dishonor worthy of a duel to defend that right. We do so not because of some newfound Constitutional awareness or principle, but because of partisanship. That's fine, but the principle involved should be recognized and we shouldn't hide behind specious and fallacious reasoning because we're chicken to just say, "It's about the power, baby, and our right to have power and to win--not representation, not because of a living and malleable Constitution, not because of originalism, not because we are equals and respect our fellow citizens."

[Gman]

4. I guarantee the Senate will never recess this year

As soon as they do recess appointments happen.