When You Can't Win, Cheat

posted by Bill Arnett @ 1:18 PM Permalink

Yet another despicable crony appointment made by bush during congressional recess:

President Bush named Republican fundraiser Sam Fox as U.S. ambassador to Belgium on Wednesday, using a maneuver that allowed him to bypass Congress, where Democrats had derailed Fox's nomination.…The appointment, made while lawmakers were out of town on spring break, prompted angry rebukes from Democrats, who said Bush's action may even be illegal.

The answer to this seems rather obvious: the congress should not recess again as long as bush is still in office. It wouldn't be hard to do, just rotate the job of keeping the two houses open to reliable Democrats, anointing them "Speaker-for-the-day" who would, each morning convene the congress, then rule that there is a lack of quorum to process appointments OR that the hearing will proceed with the single Democratic leader overruling any appointments or scheduling the hearing for a later date.

It is also true that the Constitution remains silent as to when the two houses of congress must adjourn, so if the Senate returns to Washington, adjourns for one hour and then comes back into session, any appointments made by the president would be immediately null and void. And they could do this every single time bush starts to think he's just too, too smart.

Wash, Rinse, Repeat. Adjourn, Open new session, repeat every time bush cheats with recess appointments.

Sounds just dandy to me.

Labels: flip-flops, GOP