if anybody thought that george w was the only president who made recess appointments

[AR182]

washingtonpost.com
A Look at Presidential Recess Appointments

By The Associated Press
The Associated Press
Monday, August 1, 2005; 9:12 AM



-- Presidents since George Washington have made appointments during congressional recesses to fill positions in the executive and judicial branches. Under the Constitution, the president can make temporary appointments while the Senate is in recess, without Senate approval. The appointment lasts through the end of the following one-year session of Congress.

Following are some of the more notable recess appointments:

___

President Bush: 106 recess appointments, including Bolton, mostly to minor posts. Among them:

_Anthony J. Principi, chairman of the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission, April 2005. Bush used the recess to also appoint the panel's other eight members, circumventing a move by Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., to delay the base closings.

_William Pryor, 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, February 2004. The Alabama judge's re-nomination and Senate approval this June was part of a deal struck by centrist senators to avoid a judicial filibuster battle.

_Charles Pickering, 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, January 2004. First nominated in 2001, he was blocked by Senate Democrats. He retired when his temporary appointment expired last December.

_Eugene Scalia, Labor Department solicitor, January 2002. Bush extended Scalia's term by naming him acting solicitor in November 2002, with the intent of re-nominating him before a GOP-controlled Senate. But Scalia, son of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, resigned in January 2003.

_Otto Reich, assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere, January 2002. The former Reagan White House aide left when his recess term expired the following November.

___

President Clinton: 140 recess appointments over two terms. Among them:

_Former Sen. Wyche Fowler, D-Ga., ambassador to Saudi Arabia, August 1996. Put in the post two months after a bombing that killed 19 American soldiers stationed there, he received Senate confirmation in October 1997 and served until March 2001.

_Mickey Kantor, commerce secretary, April 1996. He replaced Ron Brown, who died in a plane crash, but left in January 1997 before his nomination went before the Senate.

_Roger Gregory, 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, December 2000. He was later re-nominated by Bush and confirmed by the Senate.

_Bill Lann Lee, assistant attorney general for civil rights, August 2000. Blocked by Senate Republicans, he was appointed acting assistant attorney general in 1997, then received the recess appointment to serve out Clinton's term.

_James Hormel, ambassador to Luxembourg, June 1999. A gay philanthropist whose nomination was blocked by Senate Republicans, he remained ambassador until near the end of Clinton's term.

___

_The first President Bush made 77 recess appointments over one term, and President Reagan made 243 over two terms.

___

Other recess appointments of note:

_President John F. Kennedy appointed Thurgood Marshall to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in October 1961, getting around opposition from Southern senators. Their resistance had weakened by the following September, and the Senate approved him 54-16.

_President Dwight Eisenhower made three recess appointments to the Supreme Court: Chief Justice Earl Warren (1953) and Associate Justices William Brennan (1956) and Potter Stewart (1958). Each later received Senate confirmation.

_President George Washington appointed John Rutledge of South Carolina as chief justice during a 1795 recess. The Senate rejected the nomination and his appointment expired after he served one term.

___

Sources: AP archives; Congressional Research Service; Senate Historian's Office.

 

[dawgball]

good post, AR. I think people (me included) are still getting used to having access to ALL information ALL the time.

We have at least 3 or 4- 24 hour "news" stations that are politically motivated the majority of times.

It's just something that we are going to have to get used to. Good people make mistakes and do bad things. Everyone has things in their past that they are not overly pleased with. We just have the ability now to know more about someone than we ever have.

 

[CHARLESMANSON]

Way to quiet those hipocrites AR. Your thread's been up for hours but the hipocrite liberals stay away from this one. lol PRICELESS.

 

[kosar]

I don't remember anybody saying anything about this, Manson. So i'm not sure who AR is 'shutting up.' He's got the job for a year and a half, then he'll have to be confirmed, so we'll se how he does.

 

[CHARLESMANSON]

The liberals in Washington are complaining that Bush is abusing his power by appointing Bolton. You didn't see what Pelosi and Kennedy said? You don't watch CSapn? It's ok, I know you hardly ever make it out of the Madjacks website. Have a nice week. I can't deal with you dilussional liberal hipocrites anymore.

 

[kosar]

Way to quiet those hipocrites AR. Your thread's been up for hours but the hipocrite liberals stay away from this one. lol PRICELESS.

Oh, so you thought maybe Pelosi and Kennedy would have posted here if it wasn't for this thread?

You weren't talking about mj posters, as you say, so who were you talking about that this thread 'quieted?'

 

[kosar]

You and your alter-ego palehose are quit fond of setting up false premises and then arguing against it. Strawman arguments I think they call it.

 

[ferdville]

I wish Kennedy and Pelosi would post at Madjacks. Maybe Beantown knows Kennedy and can get him on here. It might be fun at night when he was real drunk - or in the afternoon - or in the morning - or....

 

[spibble spab]

hey kosar.
did i just miss your actual thoughts on the appointment of bolton?

 

[kosar]

hey kosar.
did i just miss your actual thoughts on the appointment of bolton?

Ahhhh, the third stooge in the Manson trio shows up.

Actually, if you read every post in the thread, I don't see one that offers 'actual thoughts' on Bolton. That's not really what this thread is about.

I don't really like him. Way too many former employees (I believe it ended up around 100) and co-workers came out against him. Also, a former colleague who worked with him on North Korea said he single-handedly almost screwed up the negotiations. N. Korea just yesterday unleashed a fierce tirade against him. Much worse than they usually do, which is saying something.

This is at a time when we really don't need to stir them up, if we can help it. (see: axis of evil comment)

He has shown from past comments that he despises the UN. Seems like a strange move sending him in there. But nothing that W does anymore should seem strange, I guess.

 

[spibble spab]

I love you, kosar. First thing you do when i ask you a simple question is to insult me. I guess asking you to slow down on the schoolyard insults is like asking you to quit drinking the Jim Jones martinis. Thank you for clarifying your opinion on Bolton though.
I disagree with you entirely. Kim Jong Il has some dude cut his multi-acre front lawn with a pair of scissors and you fired off your neurons in such a pattern to make you think he is capable of being reasoned with? I got two words for you, princess: Bottom's up! :drinky:

 

[AR182]

actually i posted this article in response to ocelot's post in the thread that djv started about bush losing his mind.


kosar quote:"This is at a time when we really don't need to stir them up, if we can help it. (see: axis of evil comment)"


i disagree with this quote completely.

the u.n. is corrupt & ineffective & something has to be done. hopefully boltan will help shake things up.......

btw, i also agreed with the axis of evil comment.

 

[smurphy]

btw, i also agreed with the axis of evil comment.

how though? especially looking at it now - now that we are in a place where we have spread ourselves and are divided about iraq at home. we've shown our hand. there's no way in the world we invade n korea or iran. all we did was call them names, and we are not going to back it up with anything.

not to mention it separates us even further from moderates who we need on our side.

 

[djv]

This one has that attitude attached to it. Seems to stand out. The guys a ass hole and seems to lie a little. There not sure if republicans would have voted in numbers enough to confirm. Bush seems not to care what his own party members think. As we saw with Frist this last week. It don't matter if the guy does self destruct he will do it again.

 

[AR182]

smurphy,

for years under different administrations we ignored what was going on in the middle east & in the u.n......we turned a blind eye & we got 9/11.

under saddam, iraq was evil.......he paid $20-25,000 to the families of suicide bombers for killing innocent people.......that is evil.

iran under these mullahs aid, harbor, & probably finance terroists.....that is evil.

n.korea under the rule of a nut job is starving it's people & causing problems for that whole area....this leader is evil.

imo, it's about time a president finally called a spade a spade.

i know there are people calling the iraqi war a mess...in my opinion i think we should let it be played out & people should stop criticizing every move that is made there....imo, the criticism emboldens (sp?) these thugs.

the iraqi war, imo could have been avoided if france, germany, & russia decided to enforce international laws. after all that is suppose to be the purpose of the u.n......but instead they thought about money & over looked saddam violating the u.n. sanctions.i think that if they sided with great britain & the u.s. saddam would have had no choice but to step away. i find it amazing that these three countries have not come under any type of criticism for how they acted.

i expect you & others to disagree...but that is what i feel.

 

[smurphy]

i don't disagree entirely. i guess it comes down to a difference in how to handle situations. separating realistic strategic responses with emotional paintbrushed ones.

i think the "turning a blind eye" part is not really accurate. ...except in the case of the saudi connections ...which are still almost entirely unnaddressed.

i agree about getting the job done in iraq. i only harp on deceptive comments by our leaders. i fear they don't have a realistic grasp on what it takes to get the job done.

regarding th un - yeah the corruption must be dealt with. no, it was not enough cause for throwing away what we were doing with iraq imo.

i feel like bush took advantage of people's emotions and did not say things or do things in a well thought out strategic manner. it only makes our tasks more difficult now.

 

[ocelot]

Obviously all Presidents have made recess appointments. Only a fool would argue this.

The question is: How many of these appointments were made in defiance of widespread opposition (both Parties) in Congress?

Did Manson say something?

 

[ferdville]

Bush Installs Pentagon Official Tue Aug 2,11:15 PM ET

WASHINGTON - President Bush again invoked a constitutional provision enabling him to bypass the Senate and install directly a nominee who had been blocked in the Senate. This time, he named Peter Flory to be an assistant secretary of defense.

ADVERTISEMENT

The move on Tuesday came a day after Bush used the same powers to install John Bolton as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

The Constitution gives the president the authority to put an official on the job without waiting for Senate confirmation when Congress is in recess. The official then can serve until the end of the current Congress, which in this case is January 2007.

Flory was first nominated to the post on June 1, 2004, but the nomination was blocked by Michigan Sen. Carl Levin (news, bio, voting record), the senior Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, in a dispute over release of intelligence-related documents that Levin sought from Douglas Feith, the undersecretary of defense for policy.

Flory has been the principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs. His new assignment is as the assistant secretary of defense for international security policy.

He would replace J.D. Crouch, who left more than a year ago to take another position.

Flory was re-nominated by Bush in January 2005, at the start of the new Congress, but Levin continued to block it. The Senate Armed Services Committee reported the nomination to the full Senate last Thursday. A Pentagon spokesman, Bryan Whitman, said Levin blocked consideration of the nomination by the full Senate.

"The Senate has had ample time to consider his nomination and hold an up or down vote," Whitman said. "This is an individual that is well qualified for this position, it's an important policy position. We're a nation at war. We're fully engaged in that effort

 

[ferdville]

What Is a Recess Appointment?
Michael Brus
Posted Monday, June 14, 1999, at 4:48 PM PT


Earlier this month, on the final day of a congressional recess, President Clinton appointed James Hormel ambassador to Luxembourg without Senate confirmation. The move prompted Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., to remark, "[Clinton] has shown contempt for Congress and the Constitution." Is Inhofe right?

Clinton's act was certainly constitutional. A recess appointment is one of the executive powers enumerated in the Constitution: "The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the end of their next Session" (II, 2, 3). The provision was originally created to fill vacancies that actually occurred during a recess, but it has since morphed into an all-purpose executive tool to counter Senate intransigence. President Kennedy, for instance, appointed Thurgood Marshall to the bench during a recess because he feared opposition from Southern senators. By the time Marshall's nomination came before the Senate, that resistance had been beaten back.


Continue Article

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Presidents also use recess appointments to delay a confirmation vote until after an election, when the nominee possesses the advantage of incumbency and, ideally, faces a friendlier Congress. President Eisenhower appointed three justices during recesses: Earl Warren, William Brennan, and Potter Stewart. All three occurred immediately before an election, and all were confirmed the following spring by a new Congress.

Hormel, an heir to the meat-packing family and a San Francisco-area philanthropist, is openly homosexual and a large contributor to the Democratic party (over $200,000 in the '95-'96 election cycle). Conservative religious groups have complained that he has refused to condemn the Catholic-spoofing performance group Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. (Luxembourg is 99 percent Catholic.) His 1997 nomination passed the Judiciary Committee, but Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott deferred to the objections of several conservative senators, including Inhofe, by refusing to bring the nomination to a vote on the floor. Hormel's appointment will last until December 2000, several weeks before Clinton steps down.

Clinton has used the recess appointment relatively sparingly; his average of nine per year is far lower than Reagan's 30 and Bush's 20. And the GOP Congress has consented to at least one unconfirmed Clinton appointment: When Drew Days stepped down as solicitor general in July 1996, the Senate let Clinton appoint Walter Dellinger--already confirmed as an asssistant attorney general--as "acting" solicitor general after Dellinger promised to serve only one year.

But the Senate hasn't looked kindly on most unconfirmed appointments. When Congress took a recess in 1997 and warned Clinton not to appoint controversial NAACP lawyer Bill Lann Lee to the Justice Department while it was gone, the president appointed Lee as an acting official instead of making a recess appointment. And since acting officials must be employed by the DOJ at the time of appointment, Lee was first hired as deputy assistant attorney general, which requires no confirmation, and later that day promoted to the position for which he had been nominated -- assistant attorney general for civil rights -- in an acting capacity. Congress closed this loophole as part of last year's budget deal. Meanwhile, Lee has been "acting" in that position for more than 500 days.

Explainer thanks Professor Brannon Denning of the Southern Illinois University College of Law, Samuel Bagenstos of Harvard Law School, and Lin Larson of the University of Iowa.

 

[Master Capper]

Bolton fits right in at the U.N. as over half of the appointees are appointed in similiar ways as Bush did by other dictators.