Richard Cordray

by Jeremy Leaming

A gaggle of senators, typically given to grousing about so-called activist judges, is agitating for court intervention into the president’s recent recess appointments, which The Atlantic’s Andrew Cohen highlights for its hypocrisy.

As Cohen notes, Sens. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), John Cornyn (R-Texas), Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) agreed to join other senators in filing a “friend of the court brief in support of the federal legal challenges to President Obama’s recess appointments of Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and three selections to the National Labor Relations Board. On Friday the senators issued a letter about their intent to file the brief, which will argue that the appointments are unconstitutional.

All of those senators, members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, have at one time or another expressed outrage over judges who supposedly legislate from the bench. So Cohen finds “something deliciously hypocritical” of their call for a federal court to take action and nullify the president’s recess appointments.  

Cohen has some advice on how Democrats should respond to the Republicans’ call for judicial action over the administration’s recess appointments, writing, “If I were a Democrat in the Senate, or a White House tribune, I would be responding to the GOP lawsuit letter by loudly doubling down on the concept of having judges determine political procedure. Republicans want the courts involved in recess appointments? Fine. Then they should embrace the notion that the federal courts ought to decide whether the filibuster is constitutional was well. After all, it has less explicit constitutional support than a recess appointment, does it not?”

Since it is likely that the Republican senators do not actually want judges determining the constitutionality of recess appointments or wading into the Senate’s use of the filibuster, they might more seriously focus on reforming procedure. Indeed it was the Senate Republican’s stalling tactics on Cordray’s nomination and the selections to the NLRB that prompted the recess appointments.

by Nicole Flatow

In recess appointing Richard Cordray to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and three others to the National Labor Relations Board, President Obama has acted “sensibly and soundly to defend his own prerogatives,” UNC Chapel Hill constitutional law professor Michael Gerhardt said during a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing Wednesday.

During a more than three-hour hearing that featured sharp questioning and a host of objections to President Obama’s actions by Sen. Mike Lee, Gerhardt explained the clear constitutionality of President Obama’s action, and praised the Office of Legal Counsel’s recent memorandum defending the legality of the action as a “perfectly good example” of the kind of nonpartisan legal analysis performed by the office.

After dismissing arguments that President Obama did not act during an actual “recess” because the Senate held pro forma sessions every three days, Gerhardt went further to explain that Obama has an affirmative constitutional duty to enforce the laws faithfully, which he was aiming to effectuate in making recess appointments.

“No doubt in this case the president considered that if he didn’t act there would be laws left unenforced --  laws that he’s obviously trying to do what he can to put into implementation,” Gerhardt said.

Some of the other witnesses testified that the recess appointments have resulted in uncertainty for businesses, because decisions made by the NLRB and actions taken by the CFPB may be invalidated if legal challenges to Obama’s appointments are successful.

But Gerhardt agreed with Rep. Danny Davis during questioning that all actions and major pieces of legislation are subject to legal challenge, and there is nothing unique about Obama’s recess appointments.

“It’s sort of a false premise to say that recess appointments are likely to create litigation when the litigation is likely to take place in any event,” Davis said. “Whether these are recess appointees or any other kind of appointees, individuals still have the option to ask for judicial review.”

Around the same time that this hearing was occurring, the Senate Banking Committee was also reviving the issue of Obama’s recess appointments during an oversight hearing involving Richard Cordray.

As The National Law Journal’s Jenna Greene explains: