Legal Brief

To: Democratic Members of Congress; Senators Schumer, Kennedy, Durbin, et seq.
From: lawhawk
Re: Recess Appointments, What the Founding Fathers decreed, and the error of your ways

I am greatly dismayed over the way certain Members of Congress, particularly members of the Democratic Party in the Senate have misread and misapplied the Constitution over a recess appointment of John Bolton as US Ambassador to the UN. Herein lies the error of your ways:

Article II, Section 2, Clause 3 of that same Constitution:
Clause 3: 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.

Senator Schumer claims that what President Bush did goes against what the Founding Fathers intended. How is that possible when the Founding Fathers who authored the US Constitution actually provided this outlet for Presidential appointments. It is as if the Founders knew that Congress might act capriciously or maliciously to prevent the President from making appointments and provided Presidents with a way to do the business of presiding over the country when Congress was not in session. If the Senators wanted to have a say, they could simply have permitted the issue come to a vote in the full Senate, and he would have been approved over the objections from the party in the minority.

For the record, I do believe that some Democratic party Senators have been acting capriciously and maliciously in this affair by refusing to act on appointments for no reason other than because they seek to undermine the President for political gain, all while the nation is at war.