A month ago, expecting the president to start making recess appointments the moment the Senate broke for a Thanksgiving break, the Democratic leadership announced it would hold pro-forma sessions for two weeks. Sens. Jim Webb (Va.), Byron Dorgan (N.D.), and Jack Reed (R.I.) would stop by the chamber every couple of days, bang the gavel, and then go home.
Though obviously inconvenient for those who have to head to the Hill over the break, it worked and several pending nominations remained pending. Of course, Congress is set to take another break for the winter holidays. Will Senate Dems keep the chamber “open” to scuttle Bush’s mischief? Thankfully, yes.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has announced that he will call the Senate into pro forma sessions every several days during the upcoming winter recess in order to prevent President Bush from making recess appointments.
Reid explained that he and Josh Bolten, the White House chief of staff, were not able to reach an agreement to prevent Bush from giving a recess appointment to Stephen Bradbury, the acting head of DOJ’s Legal Counsel, and without that agreement with the White House, Reid refused to allow the Senate to recess for three weeks.
Specifically, the pro forma sessions will be held on Dec. 23, Dec. 26, Dec. 28, Dec. 31 (a Sunday), Jan. 3, Jan. 7, Jan. 9, Jan. 11, Jan. 15, and Jan. 22, the last of which will mark the second session of the 110th Congress.
Apparently, there were extensive negotiations between the leadership and the White House to make this unnecessary. The talks didn’t go well.
Roll Call reports that the Bush gang was poised to make full use of the president’s dubious recess powers, and because the White House wouldn’t agree to avoid abuses, Harry Reid & Co. was left with no choice.
Reid’s decision came after an afternoon of private negotiations with the White House to try to craft a far-reaching deal didn’t pan out. The two sides had tried to broker an agreement under which the Senate would agree to usher through scores of outstanding executive branch nominations — including some Democrats favored — so long as Bush opted against installing any incendiary picks in Senators’ four-week absence.
The Senate moved Wednesday night to approve by voice vote 60 Republican picks for executive branch posts and eight Democratic picks.
But the two sides didn’t see completely eye to eye, as Bush pushed to include in the deal Steven Bradbury’s nomination to be assistant counsel to the attorney general. Bradbury is unpopular with Democrats for his controversial role in formulating the administration’s position on torture.
“I tried very hard to work with the president but he indicated he would still use the recess … to appoint objectionable nominees,” Reid said on the Senate floor Wednesday night. “My only solution is to end this and call a pro forma session again.”
Good. It sounded like Reid was poised to give up a little too much anyway.
As with last month, I mention this for a couple of reasons. First, because the Dems who’ll show up over the Christmas season deserve a round of applause. Second, because Dems will frequently talk about doing something like this, but then fall back in line when the time comes. It’s encouraging to see that this won’t be the case.
As for the pro-forma sessions themselves, they may seem ridiculous, but then again, so is Bush’s presidency.