Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Friday that an appeals court ruling holding President Obama’s “recess” appointments to the National Labor Relations Board last year as unconstitutional also imperils another White House appointee.
“For the same reasons, this decision now casts serious doubt on whether the President’s ‘recess’ appointment of Richard Cordray to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which the President announced at the same time, is constitutional,” McConnell said in a statment.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit reasoned that Obama’s recess appointments were unconstitutional because the Senate was technically never out of session for the holidays, but rather in “pro-forma” session.
