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Pres. Obama to consider recess appointments for stalled nominations
President Barack Obama on Tuesday signaled he could appoint nominees to key federal posts while Congress is on break next week.
At a rare appearance during Tuesday's press briefing, Obama criticized the upper chamber for hanging up a number of those appointees so far -- a moot manuever, he added, seeing as the chamber often grants "overwhelming support" to those candidates when their final confirmation votes arrive.
While Obama did not mention the senator by name, he accused Shelby
of obstructing confirmation votes "due to a dispute over a couple of
earmarks in his state." He then called on Shelby and others lawmakers to cede
their ground and permit final votes on the nearly 70 candidates whose nominations have remained in limbo for months.
"If the Senate does not act to confirm these nominees, I will consider making several recess appointments over the upcoming recess, because we cant allow politics to stand in the way of a well-functioning government," Obama said.
A number of important nominees have awaited Senate confirmation votes since as early as last summer. Among them are Craig Becker and two other candidates for the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), a handful of federal judges and a series of candidates for key administration posts at the Treasury Department, Defense Department and Health and Human Services Department.
Senate Democrats blame their Republican counterparts for each delay, stressing their countless holds and objections to most of the White House's nominees have made confirmation votes impossible. But Republican leaders have fired back at Democrats that they had a 60-vote, filibuster-proof supermajority until this January, meaning the majority party too is to blame for the running backlog in nominees.
Still, Shelby's unprecedented blanket hold -- which he lifted in part earlier this week -- further threatened to delay coming confirmation votes. And the possibility Democrats could not break that filibuster reportedly prompted Senate Democratic leaders to press the White House this week to appoint the remaining candidates in the interim.
The recess appointment power would allow Obama to install executive leaders until the current Senate session ends. At that point, the chamber would have to begin the confirmation process again on those current -- or new -- candidates.
It is unclear who Obama might deem worthy for a recess appointment, but he warned lawmakers he would consider the process unless they delivered confirmation votes on key nominees in the coming days.
The president later chided the upper chamber for allowing its "advise and consent" powers with nominations to give way to a "delay and obstruct" mentality this year.
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