President-elect Donald J. Trump’s demand that Senate Republicans
surrender their role in vetting his nominees poses an early test of
whether his second term will be more radical than his first.

Over the weekend, Mr. Trump insisted on social media that Republicans
select a new Senate majority leader willing to call recesses during
which he could unilaterally appoint personnel, allowing him to sidestep
the confirmation process. His allies immediately applauded the idea, intensifying pressure on G.O.P. lawmakers to acquiesce.

The demand to weaken checks and balances and take for himself some of
the legislative branch’s usual power underscored Mr. Trump’s
authoritarian impulses. While there is no obvious legal obstacle to Mr. Trump’s request, it would be an extraordinary violation of
constitutional norms.

Recess appointees who take office without Senate confirmation wield the
full powers of their offices until the end of the next Senate session.
Each congressional session typically lasts a year, so anyone who
receives a recess appointment from Mr. Trump in early 2025 could remain
in office until the end of 2026.

The Constitution normally requires the president to obtain the Senate’s consent to appoint top officials to the executive branch, in part to
prevent the White House from installing unfit people to high office.

But in the early days of the country, when travel was by horse, the
Senate was regularly out of session for months at a time and could not
be readily recalled when a key vacancy arose and the country needed
someone to fill it. As a result, the founders also wrote an exception
into the Constitution, allowing presidents to temporarily fill vacancies without Senate confirmation when it was in recess.

The recess appointment clause is an anachronism in the modern era, since
the Senate meets throughout the year and can easily reconvene when
necessary. But even though the clause’s original purpose is obsolete, it remains part of the Constitution.

While some of Mr. Trump’s nominees are expected to be members of
Congress who will presumably be easily approved by the
Republican-controlled Senate, recess appointments would remove a
critical check on Mr. Trump at a time when he has flirted with also
giving some powerful roles to more extreme allies who could face trouble getting confirmed.

As Alexander Hamilton wrote in the Federalist Papers, essays in defense
of the Constitution, the mere existence of this confirmation process
would act as a safeguard against the appointment of “unfit” officials.

Mr. Trump’s demand that the Senate step aside and let him make mass
recess appointments is a bold first move to test the waters.

While previous presidents have occasionally made some recess
appointments, none has ever tried to systematically bypass Senate
approval to unilaterally fill their administrations.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/12/us/politics/trump-republicans-senate.html

Will there be a fire too?

--
"And off they went, from here to there,
The bear, the bear, and the maiden fair"
-- Traditional

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)