President Trump is threatening to use his powers to adjourn Congress so he can do so holiday appointments At least for some of his top Cabinet nominees and their surrogates, so they can start running the biggest federal departments.
Mr. Trump recently raised the possibility of moving the executive and legislative branches into uncharted constitutional territory during his meeting with Senate Majority Leader John Thune and House Speaker Mike Johnson on Tuesday at the White House, and considered this option. The question was whether Democrats chose to go slow or delay it. Top national security and public health nominees, according to two people familiar with the meetings.
“It remains a significant possibility in the eyes of the White House,” said one of the people familiar with the meetings, emphasizing that it is not expected to happen this week but is under active consideration.
Mr. Trump has signaled that he wants the Senate to move quickly to confirm his top Cabinet selections, and Republican senators have said for weeks that they want to move quickly, especially on his top national security appointments. . On Monday night, the Senate unanimously confirmed Marco Rubio as Secretary of State, but John Ratcliffe to serve as CIA Director, Pete Hegseth to serve as Secretary of Defense and Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Homeland Security. Kristi Noem's votes are still in line for the job. think thought.
Procedural issues are delaying those votes, with Democrats slowing consideration of Ratcliffe and Republicans warning they would take a final up-or-down vote on him over the weekend if necessary.
It is unclear how long Mr. Trump will keep Congress on recess, given that there are fears of a possible government shutdown in mid-March and Republican leaders have set an April goal of passing massive economic, tax and immigration legislation. That would authorize Mr. Trump's inflation-cutting plans. And taxes and dramatically changing border security policy.
How can Trump adjourn Congress?
second clause of Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution Gives the President the power to summon the House and the Senate in certain cases. While presidents throughout American history have often called both houses into special session, or summoned the Senate to vote on major nominees or treaties, no president has ever used his constitutional power to adjourn both houses. Not used.
The lack of precedent means that any decision by Trump to adjourn the Senate would face an immediate legal challenge, which would ultimately result in an appeal. US Supreme Court,
Here's an example of how it will work: The House is scheduled to leave Washington for 10 days, starting Friday, so the two parties can hold their annual policy retreat. The GOP-controlled House could pass a resolution formally adjourning for that period and send the resolution to the Senate. The upper house, where at least 60 votes are needed to consider a consent motion, will either adjourn or fail to agree to do so. Under the Constitution, both houses of Congress must agree to adjourn for more than three days. If the Senate does not agree, the President may attempt to use his adjournment power to send the Senate home, launching the executive and legislative branches into uncharted constitutional territory.
The point about the flexibility of this never-used power comes from the final year of Trump's first presidency, when Democrats were blocking hundreds of executive and judicial nominees. Conservative activists began pressuring the White House to consider moratorium powers, which Mr. Trump has never used. Now, emboldened by his second victory and far more familiar with the powers of the presidency, Mr Trump is actively discussing alternatives.
The president raised the possibility of making recess appointments in an advisory manner to Thune on Tuesday, the sources said, who would prefer that Mr. Trump avoid the move to maintain and preserve institutional privileges. After Mr Trump's meeting on Tuesday, the Senate majority leader expressed public skepticism and said Democrats should be blamed for any move by Mr Trump to adjourn Congress.
“I think we're going to find out very quickly here whether or not the Democrats are willing to help us get some of these nominations in a way that gets us back on the path to the way it's been the last two Had been done before presidents,” she said.
Both parties have spent much of the 21st century using obscure procedural tactics to delay or gradually derail presidential nominees for Cabinet posts, regulatory agency boards, and federal judgeships.
What are holiday appointments?
A President may appoint someone to a position requiring Senate confirmation whenever the House is in recess. When the country was just beginning and it took too much time to get to Washington by horse or train, holiday appointments were a much more urgent need. Now, when Congress is able to function throughout the year, it has become a political strategy.
Any nominee appointed to a position during Congress's recess must be confirmed by the end of the next calendar year, meaning that if Mr. Trump were to make recess appointments earlier this year, they would last until December 2026. Could work in their roles. When the session begins, the President may re-nominate recess appointees for Senate confirmation – or issue new recess appointments to them.
The biggest legal test of power came in 2014, when the US Supreme Court unanimously ruled President Obama violated Vacation Appointments Clause by naming three selections to the National Labor Relations Board in 2012. The justices said the Senate was not actually in formal recess when Obama took the action.
