The decision by a federal appeals court declaring President Obama’s recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board unconstitutional is going to hurt.
“This decision represents a stinging rebuke to the unprecedented and unconstitutional actions of President Obama,” says Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the American Ccenter for Law and Justice, which represented House Speaker John Boehner in an amicus brief urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to declare the action unconstitutional.
“This decision is sound and well-reasoned and respects both the Constitution and the separation of powers. From the very beginning, no one questioned the President’s authority to make recess appointments, but those must occur when the Senate is in recess, which we asserted, and the appeals court concluded, is clearly not the case here,” Mr Sekulow adds. “While the Justice Department may decide to appeal this decision to the Supreme Court, the appeals court decision today sends a strong message rejecting this Presidential overreach.”
And from C. Boyden Gray, former White House Counsel to President George H.W. Bush, and lead counsel for plaintiffs in the Dodd-Frank litigation:
“Two important points follow from the D.C. Circuit’s opinion today invalidating the intrasession recess appointments of three members of the NLRB. First, the President has no power to declare when a recess exists, as he did in the case of the NLRB and the appointment of Richard Cordray as Director of the CFPB under Dodd Frank; as a result the recess appointments are invalid,” Mr. Gray says.
“Second, the illegality of Cordray’s appointment casts serious doubt on the legality of CFPB actions implemented since his appointment. It should be added, however, that the question of the validity of his appointment is only one of several issues involved in determining the Constitutionality of the CFPB.”
