Good afternoon from Capitol Hill.
We are so back. After months of the action occurring everywhere but Washington, the city is once again the center of the storyline as Congress returns and President-elect Donald Trump staffs up his administration.
Last week, the House and Senate GOP conferences selected their leaders. For the first time in 18 years, the Senate Republicans have someone other than Mitch McConnell at the helm. Sen. John Thune, the current GOP whip, was elected as Leader in a close 29 to 24 secret ballot vote, besting Sen. Rick Scott, who lost on the first ballot, and Sen. John Cornyn, who lost on the second.
In the House, Speaker Mike Johnson was re-nominated to the position unanimously by his conference, though his re-election will be made official by a full House vote in January.
The president-elect, meanwhile, is rapidly filling out his cabinet. Sen. Marco Rubio has been selected for the State Department, Gov. Kristi Noem for Department of Homeland Security, Tulsi Gabbard for Office of DNI, Rep. Elise Stefanik for Ambassador to the United Nations, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for the Department of Health and Human Services, and Rep. Matt Gaetz for Attorney General, among others.
The question now is how they get confirmed. In the Senate, the filibuster no longer exists for nominations. Each is confirmed at a majority – and there are now 53 Republican senators. The debate time required once cloture is invoked has been shortened to two hours (from 30) for the vast majority of nominees as well. In other words, the biggest hurdle to confirming nominations in the Senate is getting them to stay in town to do the job: the Senate’s two-and-a-half day work week begins Monday evening and ends Thursday at noon.
If the Senate fails to confirm Trump’s nominees – due either to insufficient votes or laziness – Article II of the Constitution gives the president the power to do recess appointments. This can happen one of two ways.
First, the House and Senate could jointly agree to recess for more than ten days. Under the Constitution, one chamber cannot recess for more than three days without the consent of the other. A recess longer than three days must pass both the House and the Senate in the form of a concurrent resolution to adjourn, which cannot be filibustered in the Senate (it can, however, be amended). A recent Supreme Court precedent held that an adjournment for longer than ten days is required for the president to recess appoint.
Second, Article II gives the president the power to adjourn the Congress whenever the chambers cannot agree on when to adjourn. No president has used this authority, but Jeff Clark of the Center for Renewing America has laid out an analysis suggesting it is proper for the president to do so.
Regardless, there is plenty of historical precedent to support the use of recess appointments:
- President Franklin D. Roosevelt recess appointed Dwight Eisenhower as a permanent Major General.
- President Harry Truman recess appointed Dean Acheson as Under Secretary of State.
- President George H. W. Bush recess appointed Alan Greenspan as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board.
- President George W. Bush recess appointed John Bolton as Ambassador to the United Nations.
All told, the younger Bush made 171 recess appointments, 99 to full-time positions – more than both Presidents Clinton and Obama, who also made use of the tactic.
While they make plans to confirm Trump’s cabinet, however, the Senate GOP must also focus on the rest of the year. Democrats are eagerly seeking to confirm as many Biden-nominated judges as possible. Reportedly, however, the Senate GOP is throwing down some road blocks that, while not ultimately blocking confirmations, will drag out the time required and potentially reduce the amount of Biden nominees ultimately confirmed.
The Latest From Around The Conservative Movement
- As a private citizen, Dr. Tony Fauci received a $15 million taxpayer-funded security detail
- Former White House counsel Don McGahn on why Trump needs recess appointments
- Biden White House tries to “legacy-proof” their work by tying the hands of the incoming Trump administration
One More Thing…
Dr. Kevin Roberts, president of The Heritage Foundation, spoke to Hillsdale College on “Populist Conservatism and the Constitutional Order.” Here’s a snippet:
…it is still the case that legitimate and enduring change in the U.S. will only be accomplished through the Constitution. It’s too bad that this point needs to be made, but there are anti-establishment voices within the populist movement—especially among the young and online—who reject the Constitution as an artifact of liberal, Enlightenment errors that must be replaced with a pre-Enlightenment form of government. But the American people are not interested in thrones and altars. They want a secure border, safe streets, economic autonomy and opportunity, a family-friendly culture, and a government that works for them instead of the other way around.
It would be a strange populism that haughtily dismisses the values of the populace. It would be a strange nationalism that promises citizens sovereignty only to turn around and rule them like subjects. Indeed, that is precisely what the elite establishment does today—and why it is failing.
None of our problems are beyond our constitutional order’s power to solve. What is it we need, after all? We need a Congress that acts like a legislature rather than a company of moralizing performance artists. We need a president who acts like a responsible chief executive rather than a drunken king. We need a judiciary that acts impartially in accordance with the Constitution and the laws of the land rather than in a partisan manner. And we need to disperse the political power that is now concentrated in the hands of the Washington establishment.