Saturday, January 26, 2013

Federal Appeals Court Unanimously Rules Obama's 'Recess' Appointments Unconstitutional

Considering that Congress was not in recess at the time, this decisions makes perfect sense to me. If confirmed by the Supreme Court, not only would it remove the people Obama put in place, but it could (and likely would) undo or reverse all of the rulings or actions taken by the NLRB since their installment.

http://hotair.com/archives/2013/01/25/appeals-court-unanimously-rebukes-obama-on-recess-appointments

"It took more than a year, but a federal appeals court has finally caught up with Barack Obama and his unilateral declaration of a Congressional recess. In an embarrassing rebuke, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Obama violated the Constitution by making appointments while the Senate considered itself in session:

President Barack Obama violated the Constitution when he bypassed the Senate to fill vacancies on a labor relations panel, a federal appeals court panel ruled Friday.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said that Obama did not have the power to make three recess appointments last year to the National Labor Relations Board.
And as the AP also points out, the decision was unanimous … and embarrassing:

The unanimous decision is an embarrassing setback for the president, who made the appointments after Senate Republicans spent months blocking his choices for an agency they contended was biased in favor of unions.
The ruling means that a full year of work from the NLRB will go down the tubes, if the Supreme Court upholds this ruling. The three appointments allowed the panel to form the quorum necessary to pass decisions. Now every ruling made by the NLRB will be delegitimized as soon as those harmed by the rulings take this into court. What a mess — and an unnecessary mess at that:

The Obama administration is expected to appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, but if it stands, it means hundreds of decisions issued by the board over more than a year are invalid. It also would leave the five-member labor board with just one validly appointed member, effectively shutting it down. The board is allowed to issue decisions only when it has at least three sitting members.
It wasn’t just the three appointments to the NLRB, either. Obama appointed Richard Cordray to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, whose appointment ran out when the 112th Session of Congress expired earlier this month. The appointment is being challenged in a separate case but in the same circuit, which means we can expect a similar ruling.
"

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