Circumventing checks and balances with recess appointments is not democracy just because the person that does it was voted into office. Democracy involves honoring the institutions, not just getting into office and then having a free for all by working loopholes and technicalities to circumvent democratic processes.
Researchers doing research: Here is the legality of it all, per Wiki:
In the
United States, a
recess appointment is an appointment by the
president of a
federal official when the
U.S. Senate is in
recess. Under the
U.S. Constitution's
Appointments Clause, the president is empowered to nominate, and with the
advice and consent (confirmation) of the Senate, make appointments to high-level policy-making positions in federal departments, agencies, boards, and commissions, as well as to the
federal judiciary. A recess appointment under
Article II, Section 2, Clause 3 of the Constitution is an alternative method of appointing officials that allows the temporary filling of offices during periods when the Senate is not in session. It was anticipated that the Senate would be away for months at a time, so the ability to fill vacancies in important positions when the Senate is in recess and unavailable to provide advice and consent was deemed essential to maintain government function, as described by
Alexander Hamilton in
No. 67 of
The Federalist Papers.
In modern times, the Senate is in session nearly year-round, making the recess appointment mechanism far less necessary or useful for upkeep of government function. Nonetheless, in recent times this power has also been controversially used as a political tool to temporarily install an unpopular nominee by sidestepping the Senate's role in the confirmation process;<a href="
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recess_appointment#cite_note-CRS-Hogue-1"><span>[</span>1<span>]</span></a> the Senate has taken measures from time to time to prevent a president from making recess appointments, specifically by holding
pro forma sessions. The
Supreme Court affirmed that
pro forma sessions are sufficient to prevent recess appointments and addressed other intricacies of the practice in
NLRB v. Noel Canning (2014). Appointments made during a recess must be confirmed by the Senate by the end of the next session of
Congress, or the appointment expires. In current practice, this means that a recess appointment must be approved by roughly the end of the next calendar year and thus could last for almost two years, if made early enough in the year. In situations where a recess appointment is prevented, a lower official frequently assumes the duties of the position in an
acting role.
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Checks and balances....ideally sounds great and what we all want, but we must admit it has become partisan obstruction.
Let's take a look at other recess appointments:
President
Ronald Reagan ma[king] 240 recess appointments [during his time in office], [and] President
George H. W. Bush ma[king] 77 recess appointments.
President William J. Clinton made 139 recess appointments [during his presidency], 95 to full-time positions and 44 to part-time positions. President George W. Bush made 171 recess appointments, 99 to full-time positions and 72 to part-time positions.
President Barack Obama made 32 recess appointments (through February 1, 2015), all to full-time positions.
It's legal and here is the precedent.
I too would like to keep politics out of this forum. So I provide our readers with just a few facts.....a few tidbits to "increase our knowledge".......real and true.......just like our RS dosages, our reconstitution ratios, and objectivity regarding third party testing of things......for our mutual benefit and harm reduction.