The Senate isn’t exactly out of town

This week, as much of the nation enjoys a light schedule and the House of Representatives is in recess, the Senate will twice open for business and each time quickly close. It will do the same next week.

The expected faux sessions will be part of a rare gambit by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to prevent President Bush from making any so-called recess appointments, as presidents sometimes do when a nomination is in trouble in the Senate.

“It’s unfortunate that we have to do this, but we couldn’t run the risk of the administration ramming through some of their highly controversial appointments while we were in recess,” explained Jim Manley, Reid’s press secretary.

The Constitution grants the president authority to fill high-level positions without the customary Senate confirmation when the Senate is in recess. Historically, some recess appointments have eventually won the Senate’s blessing, including President Theodore Roosevelt’s 1902 nomination of Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. to the Supreme Court.

But many presidents -- including Bush and President Clinton -- have used that power to appoint judges and other officials who faced stiff opposition on Capitol Hill.

This year, amid rumors that Bush might use the recess to appoint Dr. James W. Holsinger Jr. as U.S. surgeon general, Reid kept the Senate technically in session.

Holsinger, a professor at the University of Kentucky’s College of Public Health, has been criticized by gay-rights groups and public-health experts for a paper he wrote 16 years ago that suggested same-sex sex was unnatural and unhealthy.

At a Senate hearing in July, he denied any anti-gay bias.

But Senate Democrats have refused to bring up Holsinger’s nomination.

A recess appointment would let Holsinger remain surgeon general until the end of Bush’s term.

The practice of recess appointments is controversial.

In 2005, Bush appointed John R. Bolton to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations during a congressional recess, thereby circumventing a Democratic filibuster against Bolton’s nomination and sending him to New York.

Clinton angered Republicans with his recess appointment of James C. Hormel to be ambassador to Luxembourg, making Hormel the country’s first openly gay ambassador.

But perhaps the most controversial recess appointment came this spring.

Bush enraged Senate Democrats during Easter break by filling the vacant ambassadorship to Belgium with Sam Fox, who during the 2004 presidential campaign helped bankroll the controversial attacks by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth on the military record of Democratic candidate Sen. John Kerry.

After that, Reid negotiated an agreement with the White House to avoid any appointments during the August break.

But the two sides were unable to reach such an agreement for the two-week Thanksgiving recess.

So Reid asked a few Democratic senators who plan to be close to the capital during the holidays -- Jim Webb of Virginia, Byron Dorgan of North Dakota and Jack Reed of Rhode Island -- to gavel open and shut the Senate for two days each week.

During negotiations with the White House, Reid complained that the president had delayed appointing Democrats to federal boards such as the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

By law, some seats on these commissions are reserved for Democrats and some for Republicans.

“With the Thanksgiving break looming, the administration informed me that they would make several recess appointments. I indicated I would be willing to confirm various appointments if the administration would agree to move on Democratic appointments,” Reid said in a statement inserted into Friday’s Congressional Record. “I am committed to making that progress if the president will meet me halfway,” said Reid, adding, however, that “progress can’t be made if the president seeks controversial recess appointments and fails to make Democratic appointments to important commissions.”

The White House responded coolly Saturday to the majority leader’s move.

“Since he intends to bring the Senate in every three days, we encourage him to put that time to good use and schedule confirmation hearings for our nominees,” spokesman Trey Bohn said Saturday.

noam.levey@latimes.com

--

Times staff writer Johanna Neuman contributed to this report.