Justice Dept. Appeals Recess Case To Supreme Court
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration on Thursday urged the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a lower court decision that found the president's recess appointments to a labor agency unconstitutional.
In a petition seeking review, the Justice Department said the decision undermines a key presidential power that has been used for more than a century to appoint hundreds of government officials while the Senate is out of town.
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The petition challenges the decision of a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which ruled in January that President Barack Obama violated the Constitution when he bypassed the Senate to fill three vacancies on the National Labor Relations Board. Since then, Republicans have claimed the board lacks any legitimacy to act.
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If it stands, the government argues, the decision would mean that more than 500 recess appointments made by Republican and Democratic presidents alike since 1867 were invalid. It would threaten all 32 recess appointments that Obama had made during his presidency, including that of Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Obama made the recess appointments last year to keep the labor board functioning after Senate Republicans protesting what they said was the agency's pro-union tilt vowed to block any of his future nominees from being confirmed.
[link:http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=179044648|
