In the midst of one of the most severe challenges the United States has faced in decades, Congress has ceased functioning, and members, especially the leadership, have gone home, leaving vital legislative needs unresolved. It is a dereliction of duty to the most extraordinary degree. While American families and small businesses seek ways to survive economically daily, their elected representatives are on an extended vacation at least until May 4.
Nancy Pelosi and other legislative leaders have not even had the dignity to honestly admit that they have abandoned the citizenry in their time of need, maintaining a dishonest façade of being in session in only the most technical terms. This has prevented the Executive Branch from engaging in the appointment functions constitutionally provided to it to administer to immediate needs while the legislature is in recess. An angered President Trump stated that ““The current practice of leaving town while conducting phony pro forma sessions is a dereliction of duty the American people can’t afford during this crisis.”
The use of pro forma sessions effectively prevents the White House from even temporarily filling positions that require Congressional approval. A 2014 Supreme Court ruling addressed that issue, finding that as long as a pro forma session continues, a president cannot make a recess appointment.
President Trump has threatened to address that façade by exercising the powers granted go him by Article 2, Section 3 of the Constitution:
“… he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Officers of the United States.”
Despite the protestations by Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and their sycophants in the media and academia, the wording of Article 2, Section 3 is absolutely clear and unambiguous. Can anyone seriously argue that the COVID-19 plague is not an “extraordinary occasion”?
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The first is the most apparent, and is the immediate spark that resulted in Trump’s fury: the failure to confirm presidential appointments. Currently, about 85 appointments remain unaddressed. Much less discussed is the success that Obama had in insuring that left wing personnel survived into the Trump Administration.
Key positions within essential agencies, such as the State Department and the Department of Justice, have been held by individuals less loyal to either the Trump Administration or, more importantly, the Constitution, than to the Democratic Party and leftist ideals. They have sought to nullify the effects of the 2016 election by thwarting the policies voters supported when they voted for a change in Washington.
Much of this became public during the Russian Collusion hearings, when some of these individuals vented their frustration, testifying that Trump refused to take their advice. One assumes these bureaucrats forgot or didn’t care that it was their duty to obey the elected President, not the other way around.
Congress needs to either end these artificial “pro forma” sessions and let the White House do its job, or do what they were elected to do, come back to Washington, and get back to work. Unless they do, history will long note that in a time of unprecedented crisis, the American people were abandoned by their legislators.
Illustration: The painting depicts Independence Hall in Philadelphia on September 17, 1787. (Architect of the Capitol)