Opinion ID: 815978
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Meaning of “the Recess”

Text: Noel Canning contends that the term “the Recess” in the Recess Appointments Clause refers to the intersession recess of the Senate, that is to say, the period between sessions of the Senate when the Senate is by definition not in session and therefore unavailable to receive and act upon nominations from the President. The Board’s position is much less clear. It argues that the alternative appointment procedure created by that Clause is available during intrasession “recesses,” or breaks in the Senate’s business when it is otherwise in a continuing session. The Board never states how short a break is too short, under its theory, to serve as a “recess” for purposes of the Recess Appointments Clause. This merely reflects the Board’s larger problem: it fails to differentiate between “recesses” and the actual constitutional language, “the Recess.” 17 It is this difference between the word choice “recess” and “the Recess” that first draws our attention. When interpreting a constitutional provision, we must look to the natural meaning of the text as it would have been understood at the time of the ratification of the Constitution. District of Columbia v. Heller, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 2788 (2008). Then, as now, the word “the” was and is a definite article. See 2 Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language 2041 (1755) (defining “the” as an “article noting a particular thing” (emphasis added)). Unlike “a” or “an,” that definite article suggests specificity. As a matter of cold, unadorned logic, it makes no sense to adopt the Board’s proposition that when the Framers said “the Recess,” what they really meant was “a recess.” This is not an insignificant distinction. In the end it makes all the difference. Six times the Constitution uses some form of the verb “adjourn” or the noun “adjournment” to refer to breaks in the proceedings of one or both Houses of Congress. Twice, it uses the term “the Recess”: once in the Recess Appointments Clause and once in the Senate Vacancies Clause, U.S. Const. art. I, § 3, cl. 2. Not only did the Framers use a different word, but none of the “adjournment” usages is preceded by the definite article. All this points to the inescapable conclusion that the Framers intended something specific by the term “the Recess,” and that it was something different than a generic break in proceedings. The structure of the Clause is to the same effect. The Clause sets a time limit on recess appointments by providing that those commissions shall expire “at the End of their [the Senate’s] next Session.” Again, the Framers have created a dichotomy. The appointment may be made in “the Recess,” but it ends at the end of the next “Session.” The natural interpretation of the Clause is that the Constitution is noting a difference between “the Recess” and the “Session.” Either the 18 Senate is in session, or it is in the recess. If it has broken for three days within an ongoing session, it is not in “the Recess.” It is universally accepted that “Session” here refers to the usually two or sometimes three sessions per Congress. Therefore, “the Recess” should be taken to mean only times when the Senate is not in one of those sessions. Cf. Virginia v. Tennessee, 148 U.S. 503, 519 (1893) (interpreting terms “by reference to associated words”). Confirming this reciprocal meaning, the First Congress passed a compensation bill that provided the Senate’s engrossing clerk “two dollars per day during the session, with the like compensation to such clerk while he shall be necessarily employed in the recess.” Act of Sept. 22, 1789, ch. 17, § 4, 1 Stat. 70, 71. Not only logic and language, but also constitutional history supports the interpretation advanced by Noel Canning, not that of the Board. When the Federalist Papers spoke of recess appointments, they referred to those commissions as expiring “at the end of the ensuing session.” The Federalist No. 67, at 408 (Clinton Rossiter ed., 2003). For there to be an “ensuing session,” it seems likely to the point of near certainty that recess appointments were being made at a time when the Senate was not in session — that is, when it was in “the Recess.” Thus, background documents to the Constitution, in addition to the language itself, suggest that “the Recess” refers to the period between sessions that would end with the ensuing session of the Senate. Further, the Supreme Court has used analogous state constitutional provisions to inform its interpretation of the Constitution. See Heller, 128 S. Ct. at 2802. For example, in Collins v. Youngblood, the Court considered several early state constitutions in discerning “the original understanding of the Ex Post Facto Clause” because “they appear to have been a basis 19 for the Framers’ understanding of the provision.” 497 U.S. 37, 43 (1990). The North Carolina Constitution, which contains the state constitutional provision most similar to the Recess Appointments Clause and thus likely served as the Clause’s model, see Thomas A. Curtis, Note, Recess Appointments to Article III Courts: The Use of Historical Practice in Constitutional Interpretation, 84 Colum. L. Rev. 1758, 1770–72 (1984), supports the intersession interpretation. It provides: That in every case where any officer, the right of whose appointment is by this Constitution vested in the General Assembly, shall, during their recess, die, or his office by other means become vacant, the Governor shall have power, with the advice of the Council of State, to fill up such vacancy, by granting a temporary commission, which shall expire at the end of the next session of the General Assembly. N.C. Const. of 1776, art. XX, reprinted in 7 Sources and Documents of United States Constitutions 406 (1978). This provision, like the Recess Appointments Clause, describes a singular recess and does not use the word “adjournment.” And an 1819 North Carolina Supreme Court case dealing with this provision implies that the provision was seen as differentiating between “the session of the General Assembly” and “the recess of the General Assembly.” Beard v. Cameron, 7 N.C. (3 Mur.) 181 (1819) (opinion of Taylor, C.J.). The Board argues that “the Company’s view would . . . upend the established constitutional balance of power between the Senate and the President with respect to presidential appointments.” Resp’t. Br. at 13. However, the Board’s view of “the established constitutional balance” is neither so well established nor so clear as the Board seems to think. In fact, the historical role of the Recess Appointments Clause is neither 20 clear nor consistent. The interpretation of the Clause in the years immediately following the Constitution’s ratification is the most instructive historical analysis in discerning the original meaning. Indeed, such early interpretation is a “critical tool of constitutional interpretation” because it reflects the “public understanding” of the text “in the period after its . . . ratification.” Heller, 128 S. Ct. at 2804–05. With respect to the Recess Appointments Clause, historical practice strongly supports the intersession interpretation. The available evidence shows that no President attempted to make an intrasession recess appointment for 80 years after the Constitution was ratified. Michael A. Carrier, Note, When is the Senate in Recess for Purposes of the Recess Appointments Clause?, 92 Mich. L. Rev. 2204, 2211 (1994). The first intrasession recess appointment probably did not come until 1867, when President Andrew Johnson apparently appointed one district court judge during an intrasession adjournment. See Edward A. Hartnett, Recess Appointments of Article III Judges: Three Constitutional Questions, 26 Cardozo L. Rev. 377, 408–09 (2005). It is not even entirely clear that the Johnson appointment was made during an intrasession recess. See id. at 409 n.136. Presidents made only three documented intrasession recess appointments prior to 1947, with the other two coming during the presidencies of Calvin Coolidge and Warren Harding. See Carrier, supra, at 2209–12, 2235; see also Lawfulness of Recess Appointments During a Recess of the Senate Notwithstanding Periodic Pro Forma Sessions, 36 Op. O.L.C. 1, 5 (2012), available at http://www.justice.gov/olc/2012/pro-formasessions-opinion.pdf (“2012 OLC Memo”). Whatever the precise number of putative intrasession recess appointments before 1947, it is well established that for at least 21 80 years after the ratification of the Constitution, no President attempted such an appointment, and for decades thereafter, such appointments were exceedingly rare. The Supreme Court in Printz v. United States, exploring the reach of federal power over the states, deemed it significant that the early Congress had not attempted to exercise the questioned power. 521 U.S. 898 (1997). Paralleling the Supreme Court’s reasoning in Printz, we conclude that the infrequency of intrasession recess appointments during the first 150 years of the Republic “suggests an assumed absence of [the] power” to make such appointments. Id. at 908. Though it is true that intrasession recesses of significant length may have been far less common in those early days than today, see Carrier, supra, at 2211, it is nonetheless the case that the appointment practices of Presidents more nearly contemporaneous with the adoption of the Constitution do not support the propriety of intrasession recess appointments. Their early understanding of the Constitution is more probative of its original meaning than anything to be drawn from administrations of more recent vintage. While the Board seeks support for its interpretation in the practices of more recent administrations, we do not find those practices persuasive. We note that in INS v. Chadha, when the Supreme Court was considering the constitutionality of a onehouse veto, it considered a similar argument concerning the increasing frequency of such legislative veto provisions. 462 U.S. 919, 944–45 (1983). In rejecting that argument, the Chadha Court stated that “our inquiry is sharpened rather than blunted by the fact that congressional veto provisions are appearing with increasing frequency . . . .” Id. at 944. Like the Supreme Court in Chadha, we conclude that practice of a more recent vintage is less compelling than historical practice dating back to the era of the Framers. 22 Likewise, in Myers v. United States, the Court considered a statutory limitation on the President’s power to remove his appointees. 272 U.S. 52 (1926). In a powerful tribute to the strength of interpretations from the time of the ratification, Chief Justice Taft, writing for the Court, gave almost dispositive weight to the First Congress’s construction of the Constitution on the question of the President’s removal power. See id. at 174–75. The Court expressly valued the early practice over recent 1870s legislation inconsistent with the early understanding. The Constitution’s overall appointments structure provides additional confirmation of the intersession interpretation. The Framers emphasized that the recess appointment power served only as a stopgap for times when the Senate was unable to provide advice and consent. Hamilton wrote in Federalist No. 67 that advice and consent “declares the general mode of appointing officers of the United States,” while the Recess Appointments Clause serves as “nothing more than a supplement to the other for the purpose of establishing an auxiliary method of appointment, in cases to which the general method was inadequate.” The Federalist No. 67, supra, at 408. The “general mode” of participation of the Senate through advice and consent served an important function: “It would be an excellent check upon a spirit of favoritism in the President, and would tend greatly to prevent the appointment of unfit characters from State prejudice, from family connection, from personal attachment, or from a view to popularity.” The Federalist No. 76, supra, at 456. Nonetheless, the Framers recognized that they needed some temporary method for appointment when the Senate was in the recess. At the time of the Constitution, intersession recesses were regularly six to nine months, Michael B. Rappaport, The Original Meaning of the Recess Appointments Clause, 52 UCLA 23 L. Rev. 1487, 1498 (2005), and senators did not have the luxury of catching the next flight to Washington. To avoid government paralysis in those long periods when senators were unable to provide advice and consent, the Framers established the “auxiliary” method of recess appointments. But they put strict limits on this method, requiring that the relevant vacancies happen during “the Recess.” It would have made little sense to extend this “auxiliary” method to any intrasession break, for the “auxiliary” ability to make recess appointments could easily swallow the “general” route of advice and consent. The President could simply wait until the Senate took an intrasession break to make appointments, and thus “advice and consent” would hardly restrain his appointment choices at all. To adopt the Board’s proffered intrasession interpretation of “the Recess” would wholly defeat the purpose of the Framers in the careful separation of powers structure reflected in the Appointments Clause. As the Supreme Court observed in Freytag v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, “The manipulation of official appointments had long been one of the American revolutionary generation’s greatest grievances against executive power, because the power of appointment to offices was deemed the most insidious and powerful weapon of eighteenth century despotism.” 501 U.S. 868, 883 (1991) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). In short, the Constitution’s appointments structure — the general method of advice and consent modified only by a limited recess appointments power when the Senate simply cannot provide advice and consent — makes clear that the Framers used “the Recess” to refer only to the recess between sessions. Confirming this understanding of the Recess Appointments Clause is the lack of a viable alternative interpretation of “the Recess.” The first alternative interpretation is that “the Recess” refers to all Senate breaks. But no party presses that 24 interpretation, and for good reason. See Resp’t Br. at 65 (conceding that “a routine adjournment for an evening, a weekend, or a lunch break occurring during regular working sessions of the Senate does not constitute a ‘Recess of the Senate’ under the Recess Appointments Clause”). As discussed above, the appointments structure would have been turned upside down if the President could make appointments any time the Senate so much as broke for lunch. This interpretation also cannot explain the use of the definite article “the,” the singular “Recess” in the Clause, or why the Framers used “adjournment” differently from “Recess.” The second possible interpretation is that “the Recess” is a practical term that refers to some substantial passage of time, such as a ten- or twenty-day break. Attorney General Daugherty seemed to abandon the intersession interpretation in 1921 and adopted this functional interpretation, arguing that “[t]o give the word ‘recess’ a technical and not a practical construction, is to disregard substance for form.” 33 Op. Att’y Gen. 20, 22 (1921). Daugherty refused to put an exact time on the length of the break necessary for a “Recess,” stating that “[i]n the very nature of things the line of demarcation can not be accurately drawn.” Id. at 25. We must reject Attorney General Daugherty’s vague alternative in favor of the clarity of the intersession interpretation. As the Supreme Court has observed, when interpreting “major features” of the Constitution’s separation of powers, we must “establish[] high walls and clear distinctions because low walls and vague distinctions will not be judicially defensible in the heat of interbranch conflict.” Plaut v. Spendthrift Farm, Inc., 514 U.S. 211, 239 (1995). Thus, the inherent vagueness of Daugherty’s interpretation counsels against it. Given that the appointments structure forms a major part of the separation of powers in the Constitution, the Framers 25 would not likely have introduced such a flimsy standard. Moreover, the text of the Recess Appointments Clause offers no support for the functional approach. Some undefined but substantial number of days-break is not a plausible interpretation of “the Recess.” A third alternative interpretation of “the Recess” is that it means any adjournment of more than three days pursuant to the Adjournments Clause. See U.S. Const. art. I, § 5, cl. 4 (“Neither House, during the Session of Congress, shall, without the Consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days . . . .”). This interpretation lacks any constitutional basis. The Framers did not use the word “adjournment” in the Recess Appointments Clause. Instead, they used “the Recess.” The Adjournments Clause and the Recess Appointments Clause exist in different contexts and contain no hint that they should be read together. Nothing in the text of either Clause, the Constitution’s structure, or its history suggests a link between the Clauses. Without any evidence indicating that the two Clauses are related, we cannot read one as governing the other. We will not do violence to the Constitution by ignoring the Framers’ choice of words. The fourth and final possible interpretation of “the Recess,” advocated by the Office of Legal Counsel, is a variation of the functional interpretation in which the President has discretion to determine that the Senate is in recess. See 2012 OLC Memo, supra, at 23 (“[T]he President therefore has discretion to conclude that the Senate is unavailable to perform its adviseand-consent function and to exercise his power to make recess appointments.”). This will not do. Allowing the President to define the scope of his own appointments power would eviscerate the Constitution’s separation of powers. The checks and balances that the Constitution places on each branch of government serve as “self-executing safeguard[s] against the encroachment or aggrandizement of one branch at the expense 26 of the other.” Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 122 (1976). An interpretation of “the Recess” that permits the President to decide when the Senate is in recess would demolish the checks and balances inherent in the advice-and-consent requirement, giving the President free rein to appoint his desired nominees at any time he pleases, whether that time be a weekend, lunch, or even when the Senate is in session and he is merely displeased with its inaction. This cannot be the law. The intersession interpretation of “the Recess” is the only one faithful to the Constitution’s text, structure, and history. The Board’s arguments supporting the intrasession interpretation are not convincing. The Board relies on an Eleventh Circuit opinion holding that “the Recess” includes intrasession recesses. See Evans v. Stephens, 387 F.3d 1220, 1224 (11th Cir. 2004), cert. denied, 544 U.S. 942 (2005). The Evans court explained that contemporaneous dictionaries defined “recess” broadly as “remission and suspension of any procedure.” Id. (quoting 2 Johnson, supra, at 1650). The court also dismissed the importance of the definite article “the,” discounted the Constitution’s distinction between “adjournment” and “Recess” by interpreting “adjournment” as a parliamentary action, and emphasized the prevalence of intrasession recess appointments in recent years. See id. at 1225–26. While we respect our sister circuit, we find the Evans opinion unconvincing. Initially, we note that the Eleventh Circuit’s analysis was premised on an incomplete statement of the Recess Appointments Clause’s purpose: “to enable the President to fill vacancies to assure the proper functioning of our government.” Id. at 1226. This statement omits a crucial element of the Clause, which enables the President to fill vacancies only when the Senate is unable to provide advice and consent. See, e.g., 2012 OLC Memo, supra, at 10 (“[T]he recess appointment power is required to address situations in which the 27 Senate is unable to provide advice and consent on appointments.”). As we have explained, the Clause deals with the Senate’s being unable to provide advice and consent only during “the Recess,” viz., an intersession recess. As written, the Eleventh Circuit’s statement disregards the full structure of the Constitution’s appointments provision, which makes clear that the recess appointments method is secondary to the primary method of advice and consent. The very existence of the advice and consent requirement highlights the incompleteness of the Eleventh Circuit’s broad statement of constitutional purpose. Nor are we convinced by the Eleventh Circuit’s more specific arguments. First, the natural meaning of “the Recess” is more limited than the broad dictionary definition of “recess.” In context, “the Recess” refers to a specific state of the legislature, so sources other than general dictionaries are more helpful in elucidating the term’s original public meaning. See Virginia, 148 U.S. at 519 (“[T]he meaning of a term may be enlarged or restrained by reference to the object of the whole clause in which it is used.”). Indeed, it is telling that even the Board concedes that “Recess” does not mean all breaks, see Resp’t Br. at 65, which is the interpretation suggested by the dictionary definition. See 2 Johnson, supra, at 1650 (defining “recess” as the “remission and suspension of any procedure”). Second, the Eleventh Circuit fails to explain the use of the singular “Recess,” and it underestimates the significance of the definite article “the” preceding “Recess” by relying on twentieth-century dictionaries to argue that “the” can come before a generic term. See Evans, 387 F.3d at 1224–25. Contemporaneous dictionaries treated “the” as “noting a particular thing.” 2 Johnson, supra, at 2041 (emphasis added). Third, as the Eleventh Circuit acknowledged, the Supreme Court has suggested that the Constitution does not in fact only 28 use “adjournment” to denote parliamentary action. See Evans, 387 F.3d at 1225 (citing Wright v. United States, 302 U.S. 583 (1938)). In fact, the Constitution uses “adjournment” to refer generally to legislative breaks. It uses “the Recess” differently and then incorporates the definite article. Thus, the Eleventh Circuit’s interpretation of “adjournment” fails to distinguish between “adjournment” and “Recess,” rendering the latter superfluous and ignoring the Framers’ specific choice of words. Cf. Holmes v. Jennison, 39 U.S. (14 Pet.) 540, 570–71 (1840) (plurality opinion) (“In expounding the Constitution of the United States, every word must have its due force, and appropriate meaning; for it is evident from the whole instrument, that no word was unnecessarily used, or needlessly added.”); Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137, 174 (1803) (“It cannot be presumed that any clause in the constitution is intended to be without effect . . . .”). The Board offers as an example of an early interpretation of “the Recess” consistent with its view the case of a senator appointed by the governor of New Jersey to fill a vacated seat in the United States Senate pursuant to Article I, Section 3, Clause 2. Under that clause, “if Vacancies happen by Resignation, or otherwise, during the Recess of the Legislature of any State, the Executive thereof may make temporary Appointments until the next Meeting of the Legislature, which shall then fill such Vacancies.” U.S. Const. art. I, § 3, cl. 2. In the example relied upon by the Board, Franklin Davenport was “appointed a Senator by the Executive of the State of New Jersey, in the recess of the Legislature” and “took his seat in the Senate.” 8 Annals of Cong. 2197 (1798). The Board then offers evidence that the New Jersey Legislative Council Journal, 23d Session 20–21 (1798–99), documents an intrasession recess at the apparent time of Davenport’s appointment. We do not find this 29 persuasive. Nothing in the Annals of Congress establishes that Congress considered or even knew that the appointment was made during an intrasession recess of the legislature. The example offers at most the understanding of one state governor, not a common understanding of “the Recess” as used in the Recess Appointments Clause. Finally, we would make explicit what we have implied earlier. The dearth of intrasession appointments in the years and decades following the ratification of the Constitution speaks far more impressively than the history of recent presidential exercise of a supposed power to make such appointments. Recent Presidents are doing no more than interpreting the Constitution. While we recognize that all branches of government must of necessity exercise their understanding of the Constitution in order to perform their duties faithfully thereto, ultimately it is our role to discern the authoritative meaning of the supreme law. As Chief Justice Marshall made clear in Marbury v. Madison, “[i]t is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is. Those who apply the rule to particular cases, must of necessity expound and interpret that rule. If two laws conflict with each other, the courts must decide on the operation of each.” 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) at 177. In Marbury, the Supreme Court established that if the legislative branch has acted in contravention of the Constitution, it is the courts that make that determination. In Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, the Supreme Court made clear that the courts must make the same determination if the executive has acted contrary to the Constitution. 343 U.S. 579 (1952). That is the case here, and we must strike down the unconstitutional act. 30 In short, we hold that “the Recess” is limited to intersession recesses. The Board conceded at oral argument that the appointments at issue were not made during the intersession recess: the President made his three appointments to the Board on January 4, 2012, after Congress began a new session on January 3 and while that new session continued. 158 Cong. Rec. S1 (daily ed. Jan. 3, 2012). Considering the text, history, and structure of the Constitution, these appointments were invalid from their inception. Because the Board lacked a quorum of three members when it issued its decision in this case on February 8, 2012, its decision must be vacated. See 29 U.S.C. § 153(b); New Process Steel, 130 S. Ct. at 2644–45.