SCOTUS gets one right

The Most Equal Comrade was way outta bounds with the recess appointments:

The U.S. Supreme Court curbed the president’s power to make temporary appointments without Senate approval, backing congressional Republicans and dealing a blow to PresidentBarack Obama.

The justices ruled unanimously that Obama exceeded his constitutional authority when he appointed three members of the National Labor Relations Board in January 2012. Four Republican-appointed justices would have gone further in limiting the appointment power.

The case was the court’s first look at a constitutional provision that lets the president make temporary appointments to high-level posts during Senate recesses. The decision leaves the Senate with broad power to thwart the president’s nominations, letting lawmakers all but nullify the recess-appointment power by holding brief, “pro forma” sessions every few days.

“We must give great weight to the Senate’s own determination of when it is and when it is not in session,” Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in the court’s majority opinion.

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito would have ruled on broader grounds. They said the recess-appointment power applies only after a year-long congressional session ends and before the next one begins, not during breaks within a session.

We shall see if it has any kind of chastising effect.