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Here’s an idea we might want to think about as we brace ourselves for the second Trump administration: Why not just get rid of the Senate?
After all, Donald Trump has made it clear that he wants to ignore and usurp the Senate if it gets in the way of his plans to nominate cronies for high office.
Why not cut to the chase, send senators home, and tell them they can come back only when they are needed to rubber-stamp Trump’s ideas?
The ancient Romans did it — essentially neutralizing their legislature on the way from being a republic to an empire.
Of course, we know things eventually didn’t go so well for the Roman emperors.
But with his demand for Congress to allow recess appointments for his executive and judicial appointments, Trump is letting his imperial side show.
So unless the Senate wants to accept being immediately and maybe permanently sidelined, it’s essential that it make it crystal clear right now that it won’t submit. It must protect its constitutional role in our system of checks and balances, and not give an inch to Trump.
I’m not saying that out of any great love for the institution of the Senate, which has serious flaws even though there are some wonderful public servants there, but because its “Advice and Consent” role is in place for our sake, for the American people.
The framers of the Constitution included the requirement of Senate advice and consent because it protects our freedom by providing a check on presidential power. It serves as a vital speed bump if a president wants to seat unqualified or otherwise unsuitable people in powerful offices.
Many of the time-consuming and even tedious processes of confirmation give us a critical window into the character and qualifications of nominees — the questionnaires they have to fill out, the background investigations they have to pass, the public Senate hearings they have to take part in.
None of that will happen if Trump gets his way with recess appointments. We would all be kept in the dark — except for whatever bits of information reporters can dig up on people like Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth or his former attorney general nominee, former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.).
And that’s not all. If Trump tried to muscle through recess appointments on constitutionally shaky grounds, we could have a serious constitutional crisis on our hands.
Trump, lawmakers and the courts could be fighting a pitched battle over the meaning of the Constitution’s provision allowing recess appointments under some conditions.
The question isn’t whether appointments should ever be allowed when the Senate is in recess. What Trump seems to have called for could look a lot more like engineering recesses solely for the purpose of avoiding the confirmation process.
The only time the Supreme Court ruled on the recess appointments issue in 2014, it ruled against some of the appointments made by President Obama. And it issued a very stern warning against offering the president the “authority routinely to avoid the need for Senate confirmation.”
Four conservative justices — Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and the late Antonin Scalia — went even further and stated that genuine recesses really only happen annually, between congressional sessions.
Three of those justices are still on the court. So some analysts say even today’s right-wing dominated Supreme Court might not go along with Trump on this one.
There’s already been widespread criticism of Trump’s demand. And it’s coming from sources ranging from rock-ribbed conservative legal analyst Ed Whelan to the 70 civil rights organizations, including mine, that sent a joint letter to the Senate last week.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has joined in, warning incoming Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) not to “waver” in the Senate’s “constitutional duty.” But so far Thune has offered only mild resistance to the idea of recess appointments, saying he’s “willing to grind through it and do it the old-fashioned way.”
Watching this, all I can think is that if Thune lets Trump steamroll over him now, he’ll make his Senate as irrelevant as the ancient Romans’ on day one.
And standing firm against undermining Senate authority shouldn’t be that hard for him.
After all, as one conservative analyst wrote, “If you’re trying to get around the Constitution, you’re doing something wrong.”
I couldn’t agree more.
Svante Myrick is president of People For the American Way.
