Obama made fifteen recess appointments today.
President Obama currently has a total of 217 nominees pending before the Senate. These nominees have been pending for an average of 101 days, including 34 nominees pending for more than 6 months.
The 15 nominees President Obama intends to recess appoint have been pending for an average of 214 days or 7 months for a total of 3204 days or almost 9 years.
President Bush had made 15 recess appointments by this point in his presidency, but he was not facing the same level of obstruction. At this time in 2002, President Bush had only 5 nominees pending on the floor. By contrast, President Obama has 77 nominees currently pending on the floor, 58 of whom have been waiting for over two weeks and 44 of those have been waiting more than a month.
Four of the nominees are for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), two are for Treasury, two are for Commerce, two are for Homeland Security, two are for the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), two are for the Office of the United States Trade Representative, and one is for the Farm Credit Administration Board.
The Republicans will whine, but they have no basis with which to do so. Look at the record.
