President Obama has made far fewer recess appointments than any recent president. Graph.

[madfloridian]

From Think Progress.

[OnyxCollie]

1. He's keeping the powder dry.

[onenote]

2. he hasn't had many opportunities.

Starting in 2007, an effort was undertaken (originally led by Democrats against bush) to block the use of the Recess Appointment power by holding "pro forma" sessions that broke up a longer recess (long enough to open the door for recess appointments under longstanding practice) into shorter recesses that were generally viewed as not allowing for recess appointments. While Chimpy made over 170 recess appointments in 8 years, he only made 4 recess appointments in 2007 and none in 2008. After the repubs regained control of the House in 2010 they turned the tables and began forcing the Senate to stay in session, thereby blocking President Obama's use of the recess appointment power until, finally, the President decided to challenge the pro forma session strategy by making some recess appointments during a period in which the Senate was conducting pro forma sessions.

[arthritisR_US]

4. Thank you for this information, I was angered

by the fact of his low number of recess appointments and now I have the light bulb reaction

[madfloridian]

6. I was amazed that "activist judges" went after him so strongly.

The one with the fewest.

I guess irony escapes them.

[zazen]

7. that's the measure of the greed/rage of the banks

for the audacity of any faction to attempt to regulate their behavior.

This is all about dismantling the CFPB leadership (which has been hobbled from the outset by blue dog Dem resistance during passage and right-wing obstructivism afterward) and any decisions by the NLRB, since they had the gall to actually support unions in this country.

That these mo-fos would upend 200? year practice to simply vacate Obama's few anti-Wall Street acts is angering and terrifying, because there are clearly members of the judiciary who care more about protecting the greed of the 1% than any commitment to jurisprudence. (How December 2000 didn't convince me utterly of this is amazing--I guess I needed a few more right-wing activist decisions.)

The fact that they're willing to go to these lengths--plus the ramping up of the leadership in states to disenfranchise and frankly KILL by neglect the poor--truly frightens me, because we're in for long-term economic contraction in the 21st century and it's clear they're following a path that's going to lead to die-off and/violence rather than any last minute hope we might have had for sensible redistribution and mutual sharing of downscaling everyone's lifestyle.

[madfloridian]

8. I remember calling FL's Environmental protection agency years ago....

Last edited Wed Jan 30, 2013, 08:09 PM - Edit history (1)

There were blue clouds arising from a phosphate plant many miles away. The school where I taught was about 6 miles from that plant. The odor on cloudy days at our school was like rotten eggs or urine. Our school was getting panicky.

The guy I talked to was right near the top of the agency, and he did not give a damn. He said that was the price we had to pay to keep the phosphate industries here.

I also asked him why the newspapers no longer carried the daily air quality report, he said if we kept on regulating like that no businesses would come.

I said to the effect of tell me you're kidding me. He was not kidding.

It feels like they are holding us hostage to their selfish ways of doing business.

Yes, you are right...the Blue Dogs have done so much harm to our party...now the Third Way is doing the same.

[PrezHillary2016]

5. +1

[dsc]

3. Reagan's numbers are all the more amazing when you consider that he had

a GOP Senate for 6 of his years. Bush 1 had no years of a Democratic Senate, Clinton had 6 years of a GOP Senate, and Bush 2had about 3 years of Dem control vs 5 of GOP

[onenote]

9. A significant number of recess appointments are used for part time, honorary type positions

Appointments to presidential boards and the like. The Senate, which moves slowly under the best of circumstances, sometimes just doesn't get around to acting on filling these non-essential positions, so they get filled via the recess appointment process. Of bush 2's 171 recess appointments, 72 were to part-time positions. I suspect the same is true for most presidents, although I haven't checked.