By Suzanne Bowdey

It’s been a good 14 years since Washington duked it out over recess appointments — but Donald Trump seems determined to change that. In his rush to confirm key officials, the president-elect sent a strong message to Republicans on social media, insisting that whoever leads the Senate (which we now know will be South Dakota’s John Thune) has to help the White House bypass the typical confirmation process. But why is that necessary if the GOP controls the Senate? Good question, experts say.

Anyone who’s been involved in the movement for the last decade and a half would remember what kind of bedlam Barack Obama caused with this same end-run around Congress. In 2010, when the Senate wasn’t rubber-stamping his agenda fast enough, the White House took matters into its own hands and filled four several key agency positions without the Senate’s consent. The president referred to them as “recess appointments,” which would have been defensible if the chamber had actually been in recess. It wasn’t. Conservative leaders intentionally left the Senate in “pro-forma session,” which, under the rules, should have blocked Obama from evading Congress. It didn’t.

The Justice Department advised President Obama that since the leaders were out of town, the session wasn’t a legitimate one. So, he ignored the legislative process and pulled the trigger on a handful of controversial new hires that would have otherwise required Senate vetting. At the time, members were outraged. Not because presidents don’t make recess appointments (George W. Bush made 171), but because presidents don’t set the congressional schedule.

Concerned about what this might mean for future administrations, Republicans sued the administration all the way to the Supreme Court, where the justices scolded Obama for treating Congress with such irreverence. “Because the Senate was in session during its pro forma sessions, the president made the recess appointments before us during a break too short to count as recess,” Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in the majority opinion in 2014. “For that reason, the appointments are invalid.” While every justice agreed, four of the originalists voted to severely limit the recess appointment powers altogether. They were overruled. Even so, the 9-0 decision was a powerful rebuke of what has become a pattern of Democratic administrations: lawlessness.

Fast-forward 10 years to Donald Trump, who, unlike Obama, isn’t dealing with a Senate controlled by the opposing parties. And not only do Republicans control the chamber, but the threshold for a lot of these administrative appointments has been reduced to a simple majority — 51 votes — making approval easier than ever. So what could be behind the president elect’s request?

Andy McCarthy, senior fellow at National Review Institute and former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, is just as confused as everyone else. “The only reason to do this would be to try to carve a path for somebody who was not qualified for the job,” he told Family Research Council President Tony Perkins on “Washington Watch” Thursday. “Obviously, anyone who President Trump wants [and] who is qualified for the job is going to get support. I think not only support from all of the Republicans — and, of course, let’s remember, J.D. Vance will be the vice president so he’ll be there to break any ties … — but he probably will get support from somewhere between five and 15 Democrats, depending on who the nominee is. So, there’s no problem getting qualified nominees through. And there’s no good reason to scheme for a way to get out from under the Constitution’s requirement of Senate vetting before a nominee can be approved to take a high-level position.”

To some observers, like The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, all of this makes more sense with the nomination of contentious men like Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who will almost certainly be targets in the Senate — regardless of who’s in power. “The prospect is that Mr. Trump might try to bully the Senate to go into a recess, so he can unilaterally make Mr. Gaetz the Attorney General, maybe until the end of 2026. He could fill other vacancies across the federal government in the same way, with no need for confirmation hearings or votes. The idea,” the editors continue, “is anti-constitutional, and it would eliminate one of the basic checks on power that the Founders built into the American system of government.”

Not to mention, WSJ points out ominously, the shoe could soon be on the other foot. “If Mr. Trump gets away with it, the next Democrat to win the Oval Office would whoop through left-wing nominees. Whoever holds the Presidency would gain unilateral power to name cranks and cronies to offices of immense authority. Or maybe Mr. Trump’s attempt to eviscerate the Senate’s constitutional role would go to the Supreme Court.”

National Review’s editors were just as alarmed by the president-elect’s suggestion. As much as he wants to hit the ground running, “[Trump’s] request is wholly inappropriate within the American system of government and ought to be rejected with prejudice,” they argue. “The core purpose of our unique system of separated powers is to reduce the authority that any one person or faction enjoys within the federal apparatus. Were a prospective Senate majority leader to vow to help Trump get around this arrangement, he would not only be undermining that principle, but doing so by abdicating his own oath of office and weakening the institution that he had been selected to protect.”

To be clear, McCarthy said, the administration hasn’t necessarily “done anything underhanded at this point.” But, he acknowledged, “President Trump is simply making a bad judgment if he thinks that he needs recess appointments.”

And frankly, he warned, it could land the new administration in exactly the same place as Obama’s: the courts. That would be “very bad for the country,” the attorney argued, because any action the official takes after his appointment would be subject to lawsuits because “that person was not appointed.”

“That would be a mess,” Perkins insisted. And an unnecessary one, McCarthy pointed out. “Given how easy it should be for the president under the current rules to get a good nominee or even a passable nominee confirmed, I think they would be better spending their energy on other stuff.” Just look at the history of Congress, Perkins warned. “In the past when you change the rules, they never go back.”

Exactly, Dr. Albert Mohler agreed. And let’s think about the alternative, he urged. “Let’s suppose there were a Kamala Harris administration. And that administration moved toward recess appointments. We ended up with [Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez] and worse on a Cabinet with absolutely no break from the Senate. We don’t want that. Let’s remind ourselves of that.”

Besides, Mohler added, “[Christians] believe that there is invaluable wisdom in our constitutional order. And when you look at the power of a president to appoint a Cabinet, that’s absolutely clear. But it’s also absolutely clear that the Senate has the responsibility of advice and consent. And it’s very easy for those who are very happy with the Trump election … [to] say, ‘Well, let’s just cut the fast track.’ … [But] he has his own party’s majority in the Senate. And honestly, I think our constitutional order needs to be honored.”

At the end of the day, Perkins underscored, “If you blow up the rules or you bend the rules, then you really bring antagonism and anger [to the process]. And it not only disrupts the system — it could destroy the system.”

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.