On Friday, a 3-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit unanimously declared President Obama’s “recess” appointments to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to be unconstitutional. The judges rebuked Obama both because the Senate was actually in session when he made the appointments, and because two of the three positions in question became open months (in one case, more than a year) before the president implied an urgent need to fill them during a “recess.”  The NLRB, however, is now ignoring the court’s decision — thereby suggesting its members don’t think they need to heed the legally binding judgments of the federal courts any more than the president who appointed them thinks he needs to seek the constitutionally required advice and consent of the Senate. 

Rather brazenly, Mark Gaston Pearce — who was handpicked by Obama to chair the NLRB — released the following statement late on Friday: