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Donald Trump wants the next Republican Senate leader to give him more power over vacancies.
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Trump wants to use the president’s appointment power in a major way during the recess.
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Not every conservative is convinced this is a wise move, although Elon Musk agrees.
President-elect Donald Trump will return to the White House, where Republicans will have full control of Washington.
For Trump, Tesla CEO Elon Musk and other influential conservatives, this is simply not good enough. Initial reactions to Trump’s nomination of former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz as attorney general and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services illustrate that even a Republican Party trifecta may not give Trump everything he wants.
Trump wants Republicans to help him use a special procedure called recess appointments that would allow him to install Cabinet officials and even a Supreme Court justice without casting a single vote. In theory, Trump’s push for recess appointment power could allow him to ignore the process entirely — meaning more than 1,200 positions requiring Senate confirmation could be filled without even an FBI background check or confirmation hearing.
“It has been made so explicit and used as a strategy in itself that even though former presidents made recess appointments, they didn’t say this part, and there was no widespread fear about what it means and why they use it. now,” Casey Burgat, director of the Legislative Affairs Program at George Washington University’s Graduate School of Political Management, told Business Insider.
Like Trump, Musk is a strong supporter of relaxing the powers for recess appointments.
The world’s richest man recently wrote on X that without them it would be “impossible to make the change the American people demand, which is completely unacceptable.”
Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, who won the race to replace Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, has said that “all options are on the table, including recess appointments. On Thursday, Thune emphasized that Trump could still face obstacles if he does so. route.
“You have to make sure that all Republicans vote for recess as well,” Thune told Fox News host Bret Baier. “The same Republicans you mentioned who may have difficulty voting for someone under the regular rules may be the same Republicans who have difficulty voting to recess the Senate.”
Why Trump wants this power.
Trump was able to get his choices confirmed with just 50 votes, thanks to the decisive power of newly elected Vice President JD Vance. Because Republicans are expected to gain 53 seats, Democrats cannot stop a nomination on their own. But they can force Republicans to put an end to it.
In his push for appointment authority during the recess, Trump argued that it was about ensuring he could hire staff in a timely manner.
According to the Center for Presidential Transition, it took President Trump on average twice as long to get his nominees approved during his first three years in office (115 days) than during Ronald Reagan’s presidency (56.4 days). Until the end of November 2023, it took President Biden an average of about 109.6 days. The center also found that while the Senate filibuster is part of the reason for delays, even full control of Congress hasn’t sped things up.
Not everyone is convinced that time is Trump’s only motivation, especially since many of his early selections illustrate the extent to which he will elevate controversial picks like Gaetz and Kennedy.
“From the president’s perspective, I think he would see this as a shortcut to using his preferred list of appointees for temporary appointments,” Sarah Binder, a senior fellow at Brookings, told Business Insider.
Trump cannot exercise this power alone.
As Thune said, the Senate should vote on a delay. The Constitution also requires the House of Representatives to approve suspending the Senate for more than three days. A 2014 Supreme Court decision ruled that the Senate would have to recess for at least 10 days.
There’s even a way for Trump to avoid having to sign the House into a long recess. Under Article II of the Constitution, Trump has the power to force a delay if the House and Senate are divided on what to do.
Time is the only real limit for recess appointments.
Officials installed through recess appointments can serve only until the next session of Congress. If Trump were to use this power immediately after taking office, officials or judges would only be able to stay in office until the next Senate session, in January 2027.
Otherwise, Senate Democrats can do virtually nothing to stop the trial. Adjournment votes cannot be meaningfully filibustered.
Break agreements have been made for a bygone era.
Before World War II, presidents needed appointment power during recess because the U.S. Senate was out of session more often than lawmakers in the nation’s capital. Presidents sometimes used their power to game the system, rushing through nominees who might not have been confirmed. In 2005, President George W. Bush bypassed the Senate by appointing John Bolton ambassador to the United Nations after criticism from Senate Democrats.
In recent years, senators, including Republicans, have tried to discourage presidents from using their recess powers by holding “pro forma” sessions where even one senator can meet briefly and discuss matters in minutes can complete.
Not everyone is convinced that this power grab is wise.
Trump’s biggest defender so far is former White House counsel Don McGahn. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed on Tuesday, McGahn said Trump needs power because the Senate is too slow.
“A return to the longstanding tradition of recess appointments would ensure that any elected president can staff the administration with senior officials who share his policy vision,” McGahn wrote.
Some conservatives are skeptical. Ed Whelan, president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a conservative think tank, strongly opposes the idea.
“If you want to show that you are fundamentally hostile to the constitutional separation of powers, circumventing the Senate’s primary advice and consent authority is a good way to do it,” Whelan wrote on X.
The National Review wrote in an editorial on Wednesday that Trump’s request is “completely inappropriate within the American system of government and should be rejected with prejudice.”
Trump may only be in power for four years, but the reality of Washington is that if he follows Musk’s encouragement, he will set a standard that Republicans will one day regret.
“The Senate is working on precedents, and so what happened last will be the standard for how it should happen in the future,” Burgat said, “and so if we know anything about politics and power grabs, they are very difficult to go back to claim. the next guy is going to use it.”
Read the original article on Business Insider
