Presidential Recess Appointments

Last January, when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued an opinion holding that the Senate had not in fact "recessed" in January 2012 when President Obama appointed three new members of the National Relations Board, the validity of these and other similarly made appointments during a Congressional session were cast into serious doubt.  Recess appointments and the limits on a president's power to make them quickly became a legal "hot topic."  The NLRB has announced its intention to seek Supreme Court review.

This week, a Congressional Research Service report discussing recess appointments and what impact the Court of Appeals decision, if upheld, will have on recent and future presidential appointments, became available here.  Like all CRS reports, this is an excellent resource for reliable, objective analysis of a debated issue, written by nonpartisan staff in the Congressional Research Service within the Library of Congress.  To find CRS reports on a wide variety of policy-related topics for research papers or legislative histories, try the links listed in this helpful guide from the University of Washington's Gallagher Law Library.

Acknowledgment to The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times.  

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat