This was just too good a case for the highest court in the land to pass up.
But it’s also the kind of case that the U.S. Supreme Court cannot afford to ignore, either. This may very well become one of the most consequential and impactful Constitutional law conflicts brought before SCOTUS. All the elements of an intense legal drama are there: alleged Constitutional violations; breaching the checks and balances that are crucial to our democracy; and one of the most blatantly defiant acts against Congress by any president in quite a long time.
That drama has been over a year in the making since the Obama White House forced three so-called “recess” appointments to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) even though the U.S. Senate was actually convening in pro-forma sessions. Obama insists on pushing the myth that the Senate was in recess at the time. But facts on the ground dispute that. And since then, two of the three unconstitutional NLRB members have been imposing their will in a way that hurts employers and benefits labor bosses. The situation is so serious that businesses find themselves in a state of limbo, genuinely uncertain where federal labor law stands and unable to make crucial decisions because of the Obama-created impasse in Washington.
Reports Robert Barnes in The Washington Post:
The justices will review a broad ruling by a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that upset decades of understanding about the president’s recess appointment power. The court ruled that presidents may make recess appointments only between enumerated sessions of the Senate, not when senators take an intra-session break.
Obama has used the recess appointments power fairly modestly compared with recent predecessors. But he went where no other president had gone in his appointment of the three NLRB members
We watch these latest developments anxiously and look forward to a solid and just resolution in the fall.
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