More Than 35,000 Americans Team with ACLJ to Challenge Obama’s “Recess Appointments”

"The move by President Obama is unprecedented and unconstitutional," said Jay Sekulow, ACLJ Chief Counsel

WASHINGTON, Jan. 10, 2012—More than 35,000 Americans have signed an American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) petition asking President Obama to retract his "recess appointments" to the National Labor Relations Board. The opposition comes as a growing number of U.S. Senators express concern about the unconstitutional nature of the appointments and the role Attorney General Eric Holder may have played in approving them.

"This issue has struck a constitutional chord with the American people and a growing number of members of Congress," said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the ACLJ. "The move by President Obama is unprecedented and unconstitutional."

Demands for the president to retract the appointments are coming not only from citizens but from Congress, where all Republican Senators on the Senate Judiciary Committee have signed a letter to Attorney General Holder expressing concern that President Obama has “deviated from over 90 years of precedent” established by the Justice Department. In that letter, the eight Judiciairy Committee Republicans want to know what involvement, if any, the Attorney General had in advising the President concerning these appointments.

"No one is questioning the President's authority to make recess appointments, but those must occur when the Senate is in recess, which is clearly not the case here. We are calling on President Obama to abide by the Constitution and respect the separation of powers," said Sekulow.

The ACLJ has posted a detailed legal analysis online of why President Obama's appointments violate the Constitution.

Led by Chief Counsel Jay Sekulow, the American Center for Law and Justice focuses on constitutional law and is based in Washington.

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