Senate Republicans aren’t taking any chances when it comes to preventing President Obama from appointing a replacement for the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
“I gaveled in the Senate this morning to stop [the president] from making any recess appointments,” Ark. Sen. Tom Cotton tweeted Thursday. A senior GOP aide confirmed they were thinking specifically of the possibility that he might install Judge Merrick Garland to the high court while the House and Senate are out of session.
Obama’s use of recess appointments has been controversial throughout his tenure, most notably when he installed three officials who had been stymied in the Senate even though Senate rules stipulated that the upper chamber was in a “pro forma” session. The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the appointments were unconstitutional, and so Senate Republicans are holding these “pro formas” when most lawmakers are gone in order to preempt any Supreme Court action.
It’s common for congressional leadership to hold “pro forma” sessions when the president is a member of the opposite party, but Scalia died while both chambers of Congress were in a true recess. That prompted a flurry of concern among Senate Republicans that Obama might take the opportunity to make such an appointment. “It’s a live threat,” another GOP aide worried.
Obama chose not to do so, though, and Democrats seem content to attack Republicans throughout the election season for refusing to consider Garland’s nomination. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid has made the normally-invincible Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, a chief target of his criticism. Earlier this month, Reid went to the Senate floor and quoted Iowa media outlets that criticized Grassley’s refusal to give Obama’s nominee a hearing. That same day, Senate Democrats met with former Iowa Lt. Gov. Patty Judge, who jumped into the Senate race against Grassley.
