Reason for a recess appt lasting until the new congress?

[merwin]

What is the possible rationality of a recess appointment lasting until a new session of congress?

Why not just have it last until the current session resumes?

[shoelace414]

1. Section 2

Clause 3: The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.

</us constitution>

[merwin]

3. Doesn't that imply that the vacancy must occur during the recess?

[Goldmund]

4. It does -- many people have been wondering about that,

but there isn't a consensus.

My take is that this is probably an illegal appoinment, but there are many precedents for it by presidents from both parties, so nobody has the authority to pursue it.

[merwin]

5. I wonder why nobody has bothered to take it to the supreme court?

[unblock]

8. unfortunately, i can predict the supremos' decision all too easily...

[City Lights]

6. That's how I read it. eom

[shoelace414]

7. you asked why the appointment lasted that long

that's why.

[unblock]

9. one can certainly argue either side...

that the vacancy continues to "happen" during recess even if it begin during a session.

[merwin]

10. I understand, but that's ridiculous.

hap·pen intr.v. hap·pened, hap·pen·ing, hap·pens
To come to pass.
To come into being.

---------------

The vacancy, which is caused by a person leaving for any reason, can only come into being once. The moment the vacancy occurs, it has happened. If it continued to happen, that person would still have to be in the process of leaving.

It reminds me of a George Carlin quote:
"That’s another complaint of mine: too much use of this prefix ‘pre-,’ it’s all over the language now, ‘pre-’ this, ‘pre-’ that. “Place the turkey in a pre-heated oven.” That’s ridiculous, there’s only two states an oven can possibly exist in, heated or un-heated! ‘Pre-heated’ is a meaningless fucking term. It’s like ‘pre-recorded,’ “this program was pre-recorded,” well of course it was pre-recorded, when else are you gonna record it, afterwards? That’s the whole purpose of recording, to do it beforehand. Otherwise, it doesn’t really work, does it?
‘Pre-existing,’ ‘pre-planning,’ ‘pre-screening.’ You know what I tell these people? “Pre-suck my genital situation!” And, they seem to understand what I’m talking about."

[warrens]

2. The same reason they had the rule in the first place

Back then, it took a LONG time to get from your farm back to Washington and vice versa. So they were allowing the guy to at least have some time to DO something after he made the trip. It made a lot of sense before the train was invented.

[bornskeptic]

11. I think that the original intent of the framers

was completely different from the way the clause is interpreted now. I believe that by "the next session" they meant the next time that Congress met, not the beginning of the next Congress. Thus in this case a permanent appointment would need to be made before Congress adjourned in November or December of this year. In addition, as others have mentioned, recess appointments were only expected to be made when the position actually became open during the recess. This makes perfectly good sense. If Congress is in recess and the President needs to fill a position, then he may need to make a temporary appointment, but when Congress meets again he can make a permanent appointment, and it was expected that Congress would remain in session until all necessary appointments were made. However, the current interpretation has been around so long that it's not going to be changed.