Opinion ID: 76762
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Some Additional Considerations

Text: 49 The Second and Ninth Circuits have ruled that the President may use the recess appointment power to fill any vacancy that exists at the time of a particular recess, even if the vacancy did not happen or occur during that same recess. See United States v. Allocco, 305 F.2d 704 (2nd Cir.1962); United States v. Woodley, 751 F.2d 1008 (9th Cir.1985). In so finding, Woodley relied essentially upon the reasoning of Allocco, which conceded that its interpretation of the recess appointment power did not reflect a literal and logical reading of the Constitution. The Allocco Court observed that, in matters of constitutional interpretation, the logic of words should yield to the logic of realities. Allocco, 305 F.2d at 710 (quoting Di Santo v. Pennsylvania, 273 U.S. 34, 43, 47 S.Ct. 267, 71 L.Ed. 524 (1927) (Brandeis, J., dissenting)). By the logic of realities, the Allocco Court had in mind the need to avoid a situation in which judicial offices which are vacant on the day the Senate adjourns must remain vacant until the Senate reconvenes and has the opportunity to fill them. Id. Any other result, the Allocco Court reasoned, would create Executive paralysis and do violence to the orderly functioning of our complex government. Id. at 712. 50 As an initial matter, while it is a proper for an Article III court to consider the range of circumstances that its interpretation of a particular constitutional provision might cover, such consideration cannot displace the obligation to decide concrete Cases and Controversies in accordance with the plain meaning and purpose of the Constitution. See U.S. Const. art. III, § 2, cl. 1. Second, even on a purely practical note, the Allocco and Woodley argument about the dangers of governmental paralysis is more of a phantom than anything else, even in the context of our own times. The vacation of an office vital to the conduct of national security two days before the Senate goes on recess is a useful example. Despite the initial appeal of the Allocco and Woodley argument in this context, a few moments of reasoned deliberation will show that adhering to the plain meaning and purpose of the Recess Appointments Clause does not threaten in any way the President's ability to successfully manage the government during a security crisis. Common sense and practical experience tell us that the President can and does call upon whichever individuals— acting officials, deputy directors, etc.—he needs to assist him in such a situation. A formal appointment is of little importance at such a time. 51 In contrast, there is a real, concrete concern that the understanding of the recess appointment power embraced by the majority will allow the President to repeatedly bypass the role the Framers intended the Senate to play in reviewing presidential nominees. Thus, for the reasons discussed above, the reasoning of Allocco and Woodley not only fails to adhere to the text of the Constitution, as Allocco itself acknowledged, but also makes the wrong tradeoff between executive and legislative authority, a tradeoff that comports neither with the purpose of the Recess Appointments Clause nor with the structure of the Constitution. 8 52 Other than Allocco and Woodley, neither of which establishes the governing law of this circuit, the only authority the majority is able to muster for its interpretation is 5 U.S.C. § 5503 (1994). The majority characterizes this statute as a discussion of salary requirements for officers appointed to fill a vacancy that existed while Senate was in session and suggests that it indicates Congress has implicitly agreed with the majority's interpretation. Order at 1227. But 5 U.S.C. § 5503 is not a discussion of salary requirements at all. Rather, it provides that 53 [p]ayment for services may not be made from the Treasury of the United States to an individual appointed during a recess of the Senate to fill a vacancy in an existing office, if the vacancy existed while the Senate was in session and was by law required to be filled by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, until the appointee has been confirmed by the Senate. 54 5 U.S.C. § 5503(a). Contrary to what the majority suggests, this statute does not indicate that Congress has impliedly consented to the majority's interpretation of the Recess Appointments Clause. Rather, the statute shows just the opposite: it shows that Congress itself has disapproved of the President's use of the recess appointment power to fill a vacancy that existed while the Senate was in session and was by law required to be filled by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. Id. 9 55 The statute goes on to set forth three very limited exceptions to the general prohibition on the payment of salaries to officers appointed in violation of the Recess Appointments Clause. 10 But those exceptions do not establish the constitutionality of the majority's interpretation: they suggest instead that Congress has simply decided to recognize the reality of an existing (and unconstitutional) practice. The exceptions to the statute only underline that Congress does not have the last word over the constitutionality of the President's use of the recess appointment power. See Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137, 177, 2 L.Ed. 60 (1803) (It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.). Moreover, I do not see how these exceptions, which were added to the statute in 1940, 11 can be used to tell us anything about the meaning of a constitution framed and ratified in the late 1780s. If anything, 5 U.S.C. § 5503 undermines rather than supports the majority's decision. 56 The statute also calls into question the Woodley Court's finding, echoed by the majority here, that there is an unbroken acceptance of the President's use of the recess power ... by the three branches of government. Woodley, 751 F.2d at 1011. Nor is 5 U.S.C. § 5503 the only evidence of congressional disagreement with the President's understanding of the scope of the recess appointment power. See, e.g., William Rawle, A View of the Constitution of the United States 162-67 (2nd ed. 1829) at 162-67 (quoted in Ralph Lerner and Philip Kurland, eds., The Founders' Constitution (1987), vol. 4 at 115) (It would be improper to pass over the construction given by the senate to the power of appointing during their recess. It has been held by that venerable body, that if new offices are created by congress, the president cannot, after the adjournment of the senate, make appointments to fill them. The vacancies do not happen during the recess of the senate.) (emphasis in the original). 57 More to the point, however, even if one accepts at face value the Woodley Court's assertion of an unbroken history of acceptance, the failure of one branch of government to challenge how another branch understands or applies the Constitution does not render the latter's view correct. This is particularly so where the Constitution's plain meaning, purpose, and structure all militate against accepting that view. Nor does the failure of litigants to bring constitutional challenges to the executive's use of the Recess Appointment Clause tell us anything about what the clause means. Adverse possession is a rule of property law, not constitutional law. There is no statute of limitations for interpreting and enforcing the Constitution. See Freytag v. C.I.R., 501 U.S. 868, 880, 111 S.Ct. 2631, 2639, 115 L.Ed.2d 764 (1991) (finding that [n]either Congress nor the Executive can agree to waive [the] structural protection of the Appointments Clause, and that the structural interests protected by the Appointments Clause are not those of any one branch of Government but of the entire Republic); I.N.S. v. Chadha, 462 U.S. 919, 942 at n. 13, 103 S.Ct. 2764, 77 L.Ed.2d 317 (1983) (rejecting the argument that a law dating back to 1940 is immune to the constitutional scrutiny of courts simply because it was passed by Congress and approved by the President). The President's use of the recess appointment power has been challenged on appeal only twice before, in Allocco and Woodley, both of which decisions privileged a supposed history of congressional and judicial acquiescence over the Constitution's plain meaning, purpose, and structure. The question of which should prevail —a debatable historical view or the clear import of the Constitution—has never before reached the Supreme Court. 58 A final observation: by invoking the political question doctrine at the end of its order, the majority conflates the Plaintiff-Appellees' description of the circumstances of Judge Pryor's appointment with the reasons for its unconstitutionality. See Majority Order at 1226-27 (Plaintiff-Appellees... contend that the President misused [his] discretionary appointment authority in this particular instance because Judge Pryor's nomination—before the recess appointment—had been especially controversial and his confirmation had been blocked in the Senate. The argument, as we understand it, is that this specific recess appointment circumvented, and showed an improper lack of deference to the Senate's advice-and-consent role and, thus, should not be allowed.). I agree that whether the President shows an improper lack of deference to the Senate in any given circumstance might indeed be a political question. But that is not the question we face. We are asked to decide whether the President exceeded his authority by appointing Judge Pryor. 12 For the reasons outlined above, the Constitution provides a clear answer to this question. Therefore we cannot shirk our duty to resolve this matter simply because it may have some political consequences. That a decision may have political consequences certainly does not make it non-justiciable under the political question doctrine. Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 82 S.Ct. 691, 710, 7 L.Ed.2d 663 (1962) (The doctrine of which we treat is one of `political questions,' not one of `political cases.' The courts cannot reject as `no law suit' a bona fide controversy as to whether some action denominated `political' exceeds constitutional authority. The cases we have reviewed show the necessity for discriminating inquiry into the precise facts and posture of the particular case, and the impossibility of resolution by any semantic cataloguing.). See also Chadha, 462 U.S. at 943, 103 S.Ct. 2764 (Resolution of litigation challenging the constitutional authority of one of the three branches cannot be evaded by courts because the issues have political implications). 59 I respectfully dissent. Notes: 1 It is difficult for any of us to sit in judgment on the constitutionality of a colleague's appointment. I would have preferred to certify this question directly to the Supreme Court per 28 U.S.C. § 1254(2), or to request that the Supreme Court appoint another court to hear the matter. Since the court has chosen to answer the question instead, I too address it 2 The majority unnecessarily renders a decision as to the third question, finding that the Recess is ambiguous enough to encompass both inter-session and intra-session recesses. Although I would not reach this question, the text of the Constitution as well as the weight of the historical record strongly suggest that the Founders meant to denote only inter-session recesses. The textual point does not require much explanation. Had the Framers intended to include intra-session as well as inter-session recesses, they could very easily have used the phrase during a recess of the Senate. They chose instead to adopt a singular construction:  the Recess of the Senate (emphasis added). In addition, they capitalized the term Recess, which suggests particularity rather than generality, formal rather than generic meaning. These textual considerations are reinforced by the fact that early American legislators were forced to interrupt the work that provided their primary source of income and to travel slowly over long distances to a legislative seat. The Framers' use of the singular construction the Recess must be situated within this historical context. The earliest congressional and presidential papers bear out this interpretation of the phrase the Recess. See, for example, Journal of the Executive Proceedings of the Senate of the United States of America, 1789-1805 (February 9, 1790), at http://memory.loc.gov /ammem/amlaw/lawhome.html (last visited September 28, 2004) (Senate postponing consideration, early in the second session of the first Congress, of President Washington's message relative to `certain persons who decline the acceptance of offices, and to certain temporary appointments during the recess'); President George Washington's Fifth Annual Message to Congress (December 3, 1793), at http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/presiden/sou/washs05.htm (last visited September 29, 2004) (noting, on the day after the third Congress convened to begin its first session, that the Creek Indians have been relieved with corn and with clothing, and offensive measures against them prohibited during the recess of Congress); and Journal of the Senate of the United States of America, 1789-1873 (May 23, 1794), at http:// memory.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/lawhome.html (last visited September 28, 2004) (Senate adoption of several amendments to a bill authorizing the President, during the recess of the present Congress, to cause to be purchased or built a number of vessels, to be equipped as galleys in the service of the United States). 3 On both occasions in which the text of the Recess Appointments Clause is quoted in The Federalist Papers, the phrase  during the recess of the Senate  is emphasized. See The Federalist No. 67, at 390 (Alexander Hamilton) (Isaac Kramnick ed., 1987) (The President shall have power to fill up all vacancies that may happen during the recess of the Senate, by granting commissions which shall expire at the end of their next session. ); and The Federalist No. 76, at 428 (Alexander Hamilton) (Isaac Kramnick ed., 1987) (The President shall have power to fill up all vacancies which may happen during the recess of the Senate, by granting commissions which shall expire at the end of their next session.). The majority's interpretation of the clause would attribute little if any meaning to the emphasis that Alexander Hamilton places on the term  during  in these two papers. If anything, Hamilton's emphasis on the phrase  during the recess of the Senate  is inconsistent with the majority's interpretation, which would give the President the power to fill vacancies that occur even when the Senate is in session. By contrast, a reading of the clause that limits the President's power to only those vacancies that occur while the Senate is in recess seems much more faithful to Hamilton's emphasis on the word  during  here. 4 The OED entry goes on to describe happen as the most general verb to express the simple occurrence of an event. All of the eighteenth-century English dictionaries that I have consulted, including all those printed in America, support this reading of the term happen. Thus, Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language (published in London in 1755) defines happen as to fall out; to chance; to come to pass. William Perry's Royal Standard English Dictionary (published in London in 1775, in America in 1788) defines happen as to come to pass, to light on. Thomas Sheridan's Complete Dictionary of the English Language (published in London in 1780, where it first appeared as General Dictionary of the English Language, in America in 1789) defines happen as to fall out by chance; to light on by accident. John Entick's New Spelling Dictionary of the English Language (published in London in 1764, in America in 1800) defines happen as to fall out, come to pass, chance. John Walker's Critical Pronouncing Dictionary and Expositor of the English Language (published in London in 1791, in America in 1803) defines happen as to fall out by chance, to come to pass; to light on by accident. Samuel Johnson, Jr. and John Elliott's Selected Pronouncing and Accented Dictionary (published in America in 1800) defines happen as to fall out, come to pass. Caleb Alexander's Columbian Dictionary of the English Language (published in America in 1800) defines happen as to fall out, to light on. Finally, Noah Webster's Compendious Dictionary of the English Language (published in America in 1806), also known as Webster's First Dictionary, defines happen as to fall out, come to pass, chance. To the extent that these definitions differ from today's usage, it is not insofar as they suggest that exist was a recognized synonym for happen, for that comparison is nowhere made in any of the above dictionaries. Rather, the difference is that the eighteenth-century definitions suggest a somewhat more pronounced emphasis on the element of chance or fortuity, an emphasis entirely consistent with the plain meaning of the Recess Appointments Clause. The majority's response to all of this evidence is simply to note that happen in today's usage can also mean befall, which can also mean happen to be. See Majority Order at 1225-26. This is at best a strained effort to avoid the available dictionary evidence, and with it the plain meaning rule. A cross-reference is not a direct definition, and this reference comes from a contemporary and not an eighteenth-century dictionary. The majority provides no direct evidence from either contemporary or eighteenth-century dictionaries—and no evidence at all from any eighteenth-century dictionaries—that happen can mean exist. 5 See also William Rawle, A View of the Constitution of the United States 162-67 (2nd ed. 1829) (quoted in Ralph Lerner and Philip Kerner, eds., The Founders' Constitution (1987), vol. 4 at 115) (It would be improper to pass over the construction given by the senate to the power of appointing during their recess. It has been held by that venerable body, that if new offices are created by congress, the president cannot, after the adjournment of the senate, make appointments to fill them. The vacancies do not happen during the recess of the senate.) (emphasis in the original); and S.Rep. No. 37-80, at 3-6 (3d. Sess.1863) (rejecting the argument that the term happen in the Recess Appointments Clause can be construed to mean happen to exist). 6 Hamilton's purpose in this paper was to rebut the allegation that the Constitution would have allowed the President, rather than the governors of the states, to fill vacancies in the Senate 7 3 Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution § 1551 (1833) (quoted in Ralph Lerner and Philip Kerner, eds., The Founders' Constitution (1987), vol. 4 at 122). 8 It is also worth noting that Woodley makes selective and somewhat misleading use of the various eighteenth-century dictionary definitions of happen quoted in footnote 1 above. See Woodley, 751 F.2d at 1013 n. 8. The effect is to minimize the extent to which those definitions suggest that happen meant to occur or take place even in the eighteenth century, and not merely in modern usage. 9 See S.Rep. No. 37-80 at 3-6 (3d. Sess.1863) (explaining the rationale for the law now known as 5 U.S.C. § 5503 and rejecting the argument that the term happen in the Recess Appointments Clause can be construed to mean happen to exist). 10 The statute does not apply: (1) if the vacancy arose within 30 days before the end of the session of the Senate; (2) if, at the end of the session, a nomination for the office, other than the nomination of an individual appointed during the preceding recess of the Senate, was pending before the Senate for its advice and consent; or (3) if a nomination for the office was rejected by the Senate within 30 days before the end of the session and an individual other than the one whose nomination was rejected thereafter receives a recess appointment. 5 U.S.C. § 5503(a)(1-3). It also provides that any nomination to fill a vacancy described in one of those three exceptions shall be submitted to the Senate not later than 40 days after the beginning of the next session of the Senate. 5 U.S.C. § 5503(b). As the majority also fails to acknowledge, none of the three exceptions applies to the instant case. 11 Compare Rev. Stat. § 1761 as amended by 43 Stat. 669 (Act of June 7, 1924) with 54 Stat. 751 (1940). By contrast, the prohibition on payment of salaries to individuals appointed to fill vacancies that existed while the Senate was in session dates back to 1863. See 12 Stat. 646 (Act of February 9, 1863). 12 I note that the majority first claims that the motion somehow raises a separable political question. However, when it comes to explaining why the court chose not to certify the question to the Supreme Court, the majority argues that the motion raises purely legal, constitutional issues. Majority Order at 1228 n.14