Calling For Recess

President Obama went on the offensive today, saying he'll consider making recess appointments if the Senate won't allow nominees to come to a floor vote.

In a surprise appearance before the White House press corps on Tuesday, President Barack Obama announced he would consider using recess appointments to get his nominees to their posts if Senate Republicans deny them an up-or-down vote.

Speaking to reporters shortly after he met with a bipartisan group of congressional leaders, Obama said that he informed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) that he would "consider" such a course of action if the GOP obstructionism continued.

"In our meeting I asked the congressional leadership to put a stop to these holds in which nominees for a critical job are denied a vote for months," he said.

"If the Senate does not act, and I made this very clear," Obama continued, "I will consider making several recess appointments during the upcoming recess because we can't afford to let politics stand in the way of a well functioning government."

Worked for Bush.  Worked for Clinton too.  In fact, Obama's the only President in recent history not to have made any recess appointments during his first year in office.

All modern Presidents have made recess appointments both during the shorter breaks within a session of Congress as well as during the longer recess between the two sessions.   In fact, the last five Presidents used it with frequency: George W Bush 171 times, Clinton 139, HW Bush 77, Reagan 242 and Carter 68. Presidents Jackson, Taylor, and Lincoln made hundreds of recess appointments during their terms.

President John F. Kennedy appointed our nation’s first black Supreme Court Justice, Thurgood Marshall to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in October 1961, getting around opposition from Southern senators.  President Dwight Eisenhower made three recess appointments to the Supreme Court: Chief Justice Earl Warren (1953) and Associate Justices William Brennan (1956) and Potter Stewart (1958). Each later received Senate confirmation.  On one day alone, President Reagan made a record forty-six recess appointments.

If anything, Obama's been about six months into the "far too nice" category. Time to fill those vacancies.