Senator Chuck Grassley, Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, made the following statement after the Supreme Court decided it would hear an appeal by the Obama administration in National Labor Relations Board v. Noel Canning. Previously, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that recess appointments made by President Obama on January 4, 2012 were unconstitutional because the Senate was in session. At the time of the appointments, Grassley led committee Republicans in pressing the administration to release the legal opinion advising on the constitutionality of the appointments. Grassley also provided context and historical information on the President’s executive overreach in a series of speeches given on the Senate floor. The text of those speeches can be found at these links.
Constitutionality of President Obama's "Recess" Appointments
Unconstitutional Power Grabs
The Erosion of Checks and Balances
Grassley also joined forty-four Senators in filing an amicus curiae brief asking the Supreme Court to review the constitutionality of President Obama’s bypassing of the Senate in making so-called recess appointments.
“The Senate’s role in advising and consenting to presidential nominees is one of its most vital functions, and laid out in the Constitution. The administration ignored 90 years of legal precedent when it made the recess appointments while the Senate was in session. This is an opportunity for the Supreme Court to restore the shared power of appointment that the Constitution established, and rein in an administration that has taken the overreach of executive power to new heights.”