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Whereas under the Appointments Clause, the “power of appointment is confided to the President and Senate jointly”(in view of the Senate having the power under that clause to withhold consent),
the Recess Appointments Clause “authorise[s] the President, singly, to make temporary appointments” to vacant Offices, which may be “necessary for the public service to fill without delay.”8
The Framers additionally saw to it that, notwithstanding the senatorial advice-and-consent qualification on appointments,9the President “shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies [in Offices] that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.”10
As President Monroe’s Attorney General, William Wirt, propounded in hiscornerstone opinion interpreting the Recess Appointments Clause:
“The substantial purpose of the [C]onstitutionwas to keep these offices filled; and powers adequate to this purpose were intended to be conveyed.”11
The Courts and the Executive Branch have firmly rejected any notion that “a recess appointment is somehow a constitutionally inferior procedure, not entirely valid or in some way suspect” based on the argument that “the normal appointment process envisioned by the Constitution is nomination by the President with confirmation by the Senate.”12
“The Constitution . . . must be regarded as one instrument, all of whose provisions are to be deemed of equal validity.”13
The Appointments Clause, taken in juxtaposition with the Recess Appointment Clause, is no exception. A recess appointee, just like a Senate-confirmed appointee, “is appointed by one of the methods specified in the Constitution itself . . . he holds the office; and he receives its pay.”14 Furthermore, “[t]here is nothing to suggest that the Recess Appointments Clause was designed as some sort of extraordinary and lesser method of appointment, to be used only in cases of extreme necessity.”15
Recess of the Senate
Under the Recess Appointments Clause, the President’s constitutional power to recess appoint Officers to vacant Offices without the advice and consent of the Senateis triggered either by an inter-session recess of the Senate or by an intra-session recess of the Senate. The Senate or the House “announces an inter-session recess by approving a resolutionstating that it will ‘adjourn sine die,’ i.e., without specifying a date to return(in which case Congress will reconvene when the next formal session is scheduled to begin),” whereas the Senate or House “announces any such ‘intra-session recess’ by adopting a resolution stating that it will ‘adjourn’ to a fixed date, a few days or weeks or even months later.” NLRB v. Noel Canning, 573 u.
Clark 8 page report on Recess Claus.
I love reading of the Consitution and Framers rules in regard to our gov.Pretty impressive most of the Framers were in their late 20s, 30s and 40s that wrote and confirmed the Constitution, Bills of Right, Declarations of freedom, bound by the rule of law…
PDF attached
https://media.128ducks.com/file_store/4a7b7b17142336b588b2d7247f7426b32f9f94341f0857af2404492dee13c4ef.pdf