Not likely, says spokespeople for lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, according to Bloomberg.
“The Congress hasn’t been in recess all year, and we don’t expect we will be,” said Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
The controversial recess appointment procedure would enable the President to install his nominee when Congress is not in session. Last week, Senate Republicans block the nomination of former Ohio AG Richard Corday, President Obama’s pick to lead the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Obama afterward refused to dismiss the idea of a recess appointment, stating that he wouldn’t “take any options off the table.” Yet Stewart noted that Majority Leader Harry Reid had the Senate in sessions on a pro-forma basis during recesses throughout the year.
“Two Senate Democratic leadership aides who spoke on condition of anonymity said Reid is unlikely to end the practice of pro-forma sessions while lawmakers are back in their states until January,” reports Bloomberg. “A single senator can be on hand to invoke the pro-forma session.”
These pro-forma sessions, on the other hand, have also kept Republican lawmakers in the House, where the GOP has the majority, from being able to block certain actions on the Democrat agenda.
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“We haven’t adjourned in quite a while, and I don’t expect that to change,” said Mike Steel, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, an Ohio Republican.
