The Washington Post reports:

As Donald Trump moves to fill his administration with polarizing figures like former Florida congressman Matt Gaetz and onetime presidential rival Robert F. Kennedy Jr., he may need Congress to heed his demand to allow him to bypass the traditional confirmation process and appoint his picks without Senate approval.

The president-elect has insisted that rather than put his nominees through an extended public vetting process, the GOP-led Senate should take extended breaks that would allow him to make recess appointments.

Experts in American democracy say Trump’s call is the first major post-election test for Republicans in Congress of whether they will stand up for traditional checks and balances or bend to Trump’s desire not to have his choices questioned. The Constitution dictates that while the president gets to nominate key executive branch officials, it is up to the Senate to provide “advice and consent.”

If the Senate agreed to adjourn for the purpose of Trump filling his government without congressional input, it would be “an absolute abdication of their constitutional power,” said Sarah Binder, a political science professor at George Washington University.

“It’s saying, ‘Look, we are so loyal to President Trump, we’re so loyal that we’re going to choose him over our rights and our responsibilities as senators,’” she said. “It doesn’t get more stark than that.”

The question of whether Trump could circumvent Congress to install the people he wants has come into sharp focus this week as he has accelerated the pace of appointments.

Gaetz, an inflammatory Trump loyalist who has come under investigation by the House Ethics Committee, drew pushback even from some Republican senators when the president-elect picked him as his nominee for attorney general. [Continue reading…]