Advice and Consent and the Limited Role of Recess Appointments
The Senate's Advice and Consent role is a fundamental constitutional authority carefully designed to ensure proper scrutiny of powerful executive branch positions. It serves as a critical check on the executive branch and is instrumental to the separation of powers. Recess appointments are only meant to be a limited exception to the usual rules for Senate confirmation of a president's nominees and it would be a serious breach of the Constitution's framework for a president to make recess appointments simply to avoid the Advice and Consent Process. This report provides an overview of how the Framers of our Constitution understood the Advice and Consent Process and the very limited role of recess appointments.