What Constitutes A Recess In Congress?......

[global1]

Is it an official designation or is it just when congress chooses to take a vacation? Is it when there are no official sessions in either the House or the Senate?

Here's where I'm going with this. I was wondering if a small number of Senators and Congressmen stayed around D.C. and did something official - would it then not be a recess. If so, then * wouldn't be able to take advantage of 'recess appointments'.

[pinto]

1. Good point, but I think the recess is 'official' when the Senate and the House adjourn.

[global1]

4. The Dems Are In Control Now - Do They Have To Call For Adjournment?.....

No call for adjournment. No vote. No recess. * can't make recess appointments.

[Warren Stupidity]

2. They vote on it and its a recess.

Recess appointments have been used for 200 yearars. They are bullshit, but this time bush didn't make up new bullshit.

[onenote]

3. there is no specified minimum

Over the years, there have been a variety of interpretations, but it is generally accepted that there is no specific minimum time specified. See http://www.opencrs.com/rpts/RL33009_20050726.pdf

The problem with your approach is that it would lead to attempts to move to call a recess and each side would try to come up with more votes and pretty soon there would be no recess. Since members of both parties want the recesses (so they can go home to campaign, go on trips, etc etc), an approach that effectively forced them to give up recesses isn't likely to happen.

[global1]

5. They All Don't Have To Give Up Their Recess.....

keep some Sen/Congr back let the others go. Don't hold crucial votes when they are gone - but have something going on so that it doesn't get designated a recess. Concept of a 'skeleton crew'. Again now that the Dems are in power - they can control what happens on a day to day basis.

Also - they can rotate positions so that during the next proposed recess that doesn't happen - a completely different group of Sen/Congr can stay back to keep things going.

Just a thought.

It just pisses me off that * uses the recess to pull fast ones on us.

At least - this would be fighting fire with fire.

Piss him off more if we could cut off his opportunity to do a recess appointment.

[pinto]

6. No can do. Can't have some for a quorum call and not others, can't have some available for

a vote and not others. It is what it is.

The other option is to limit recess appointments to the next full Senate, (after the recess, in this case Apr 16, iirc) for confirmation, not the end of the Congress (in this case Jan 2009).

[onenote]

7. but you need enough to defeat a motion to adjourn or recess

Just keeping a few people back isn't enough if the other side keeps one more than your side and they move and pass a motion to recess. So you need to have more back than they do. In which case, basically, everyone ends up staying back. And members value the recess more than they dislike recess appointments.