House Conservatives Want a 10-Day Senate Break So Trump Can Fill Jobs Himself

House conservatives have found a shortcut around the Senate’s slow confirmation grind, and it is written right into the Constitution.

At a House Freedom Caucus press conference Wednesday, chairman Andy Harris of Maryland laid out the group’s to-do list for the 52 days Republicans have left in charge of Congress. Then he tossed in an idea that got more attention than the list itself.

“Just as an aside, if they don’t want to spend all 52 days, that’s fine,” Harris said, according to CiVL. “Let’s take a 10-day recess so the president can make some recess appointments that can last for a year.”

Put simply: if senators will not stay in town to vote on President Trump’s picks, they could leave town long enough for him to seat those picks himself.

How a recess appointment works

Most top federal jobs, from cabinet deputies to ambassadors to board seats on independent agencies, need a Senate vote. But the Constitution gives the president a backup. When the Senate is in recess, he can fill open posts on his own, and those appointees serve until the end of the Senate’s next session. Depending on the timing, that can stretch close to a year, or more.

There is a catch, and it explains Harris’s number. In 2014, in a case called NLRB v. Noel Canning, the Supreme Court said a Senate break of more than three days but less than 10 is “presumptively too short” to count. A break of 10 days or longer is the zone where a recess appointment is on firmer ground. So 10 days is not a random figure. It is the line the Court drew.

Under the Constitution, neither chamber can adjourn for more than three days without the other’s consent, so the House and the Senate would both have to go along. For years, both parties have dodged recess appointments by holding quick “pro forma” sessions every few days, where the gavel comes down and nothing else happens. Ending that habit for a stretch is all Harris is asking for.

A to-do list for 52 days

The recess idea rode along with a bigger push. The caucus board sent a letter on Nov. 9 to Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, and the group posted its priorities the same day as the press conference.

The list runs eight items deep. It calls for a reconciliation package with at least $1 trillion in spending cuts plus tax relief, writing the president’s border policies into law and banning sanctuary cities, clean funding bills at current spending levels, a strong permitting bill, a ban on stock trading by members of Congress, term limits, voter ID for federal elections, and confirming “as many Presidential nominees as possible.”

The thinking behind it is simple. An executive order can be undone by the next president with a pen. A law cannot. Members said that if Trump’s border wins are going to outlast this Congress, now is the time to lock them in, before the 120th Congress is sworn in on Jan. 3.

Rep. Randy Fine of Florida put a clock on it. “To the Democrats, it’s 1,272 hours and 25 minutes until the 120th Congress begins,” he said, according to Bay News 9. “I’m happy to stay here 24 hours a day, seven days a week until that time happens, in order to do this.” Rep. Keith Self of Texas stuck to the bottom line at the podium: “get as many of the President’s nominees through as possible.”

The Senate’s move

The ball is in Thune’s court, and Harris said so. “Look, it’s up to Leader Thune,” he said. “I hope he got the message from the election that you actually have to deliver something. And again, he runs the Senate. We run the House.”

The Senate is not sitting still. Its Executive Calendar on Wednesday showed 42 nominations waiting for a floor vote, from Postal Service governors to ambassadors, plus seven picks for federal appeals and district courts. Thune told reporters Tuesday that Republicans have “a number of executive branch nominations that we want to get through the process.” Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas predicted on 𝕏 that the Senate will “confirm around 100 executive branch nominees between now and January.” Sen. Rick Scott of Florida has been pushing colleagues to work seven days a week until Trump’s judges are done.

That points to the real trade-off. Judges are lifetime jobs, and they cannot be filled for good by a recess appointment. A recess pick to a court would only last until the end of the next session. So for the bench, staying in session and voting is the only lasting fix. For the long line of executive posts, a 10-day break could seat people quickly who might otherwise wait forever once Democrats hold the committee gavels.

Why the clock matters so much

Starting in January, Democrats will control the Senate and decide which of Trump’s nominees even get a hearing. Any job that is still empty on Jan. 3 could stay empty, or be filled by an acting official, for the next two years. A recess appointment made in December would not run out until the end of the new Congress’s first session, which means a full year of Trump’s own people running those offices while Democrats run the committees.

Senate Republicans have not said whether they will take Harris up on it. But the Freedom Caucus has made its case in plain terms: use every day that is left, and if the Senate will not use them, let the president use the calendar instead.