… before Barack Obama is sworn in and inaugurated?
Does this mean the Bush WH would have technically had to forward her name for consideration?
It’s generally considered a good idea to have the cabinet pretty much in place and confirmed by inauguration time. Better than going through weeks of confirmation hearings with no Secretaries of Anything Departments.
When you consider that Bush signed into law at least one piece of Congressional legislation that did not go through official voting channels in Congress, anything is possible. In that case, (trying to find the cite) one side of Congress passed a bill where a Congressional staff later made a change in the wording that was signed by the President. There was a minor stink made but the media nor Congress did anything about it. One might call this picking nits but the sad fact is that technically it was unconstitutional.
In the same vein, we have the new current Congress deciding on cabinet “appointments” made by a private individual. (Obama has no constitutional standing at the moment.) As long as the Congressional committees and the larger Congress actually votes on the choices after 12:01 pm EST next Tuesday, all would be kosher. Of course, if the end justifies the means …
I seem to recall from some previous inauguration that immediately after the new President finishes his swearing-in, he goes into the Capitol, where he stops briefly to formally sign his cabient appointments. Thereafter, the Senate goes into session and votes on the nominees.
I believe that right now the Senate is merely having committee hearings, which it can do whenever it wants, but the formal nomination and full Senate confirmation vote will actually occur after Obama is sworn in.
There is no requirement for a nomination to be sent to the Senate before a hearing can be held. In fact, there are very few effective restrictions on what congressional committees may hold hearings on. To vote on the nomination, however, it must have been made by the President and delivered to the Senate. The nomination of the cabinet is very likely to be President Obama’s first official act after swearing in, as it is expected that a number of them will be confirmed during the afternoon of the 20th.
As far as Duckster’s point on the House and Senate passing identical bills, the Supreme Court ruled in 1892 that, following passage of a bill in both chambers, and an enrolled (basically, official) version of the bill is signed by the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate, the signatures of those officers validate that the enrolled version of the bill, which is sent to the President for signature, is THE bill.
Various lawsuits were filed by a number of people disputing the constitutionality of the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, the bill Duckster referenced. All of those lawsuits were rejected by the courts.
I’ve asked around and gotten some variations on the same answer. Congress and committees can have hearings on pretty much anything, doesn’t make it precedent or even carry legal weight. It would only get dicey if they were to actually confirm her.
I guess the hearings being informal, sometime between inauguration and confirmation, albeit as a formality… then-president Obama will transmit correspondence to Congress his nomination of Sec’y of State for their advice and consent?
Incoming Presidents in recent decades have often transmitted their high-level nominations as one of their first acts upon being sworn in. This appears to be Mr. Obama’s plan, as Hillary Clinton’s confirmation vote by the full Senate is scheduled for the afternoon of the 20th.