How GOP senators can avoid being 'steamrolled' by Trump’s 'imperial side show'

09 December 2024

President-elect Donald Trump has threatened to use a process known as "recess appointments" if Senate Republicans refuse to confirm his more controversial nominees — a group that includes far-right conspiracy theorist Kash Patel for FBI director, anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for director of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard for intelligence director.

The idea is to force the U.S. Senate into a recess and ram through nominees who might have a hard time getting confirmed.

In a biting op-ed published by The Hill on December 9, People for the American Way President Svante Myrick argues that the wellbeing and credibility of the Senate is on the line — and that GOP senators must stand up to Trump in order to protect Congress' upper chamber.

"With his demand for Congress to allow recess appointments for his executive and judicial appointments," Myrick warns, "Trump is letting his imperial side show. So unless the Senate wants to accept being immediately and maybe permanently sidelined, it's essential that it make it crystal clear right now that it won't submit. It must protect its constitutional role in our system of checks and balances, and not give an inch to Trump."

The People for the American Way president continues, "I'm not saying that out of any great love for the institution of the Senate, which has serious flaws even though there are some wonderful public servants there, but because its 'advice and consent' role is in place for our sake, for the American people."

Myrick notes that the Framers of the U.S. Constitution "included the requirement of Senate advice and consent" in order to provide "a check on presidential power."

"It serves as a vital speed bump if a president wants to seat unqualified or otherwise unsuitable people in powerful offices," Myrick explains. "Many of the time-consuming and even tedious processes of confirmation give us a critical window into the character and qualifications of nominees — the questionnaires they have to fill out, the background investigations they have to pass, the public Senate hearings they have to take part in. None of that will happen if Trump gets his way with recess appointments."

Myrick adds, "We would all be kept in the dark — except for whatever bits of information reporters can dig up on people like Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth or his former attorney general nominee, former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.)."

The People for the American Way president stresses that the U.S. "could have a serious constitutional crisis on our hands" if Trump "tried to muscle through recess appointments on constitutionally shaky grounds."

Incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota), according to Myrick, will "make his Senate irrelevant" if he " lets Trump steamroll over him now."

"Trump, lawmakers and the courts could be fighting a pitched battle over the meaning of the Constitution's provision allowing recess appointments under some conditions," Myrick notes. "The question isn't whether appointments should ever be allowed when the Senate is in recess. What Trump seems to have called for could look a lot more like engineering recesses solely for the purpose of avoiding the confirmation process."

Svante Myrick's full op-ed for The Hill is available at this link.

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