Synopsis: The Supreme Court is being presented with an incomplete set of choices. The January 4, 2012 recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board were made prior to the actual assembling of the House (on January 17, 2012) and Senate (on January 23, 2012) when a quorum of each was first present to begin the annual meeting of Congress within the meaning of the Twentieth Amendment. The January 4 recess appointments should be treated as valid appointments that if not identical to intersession appointments, which they may be, are at least constitutionally comparable to them. As such, they lasted for one year until the end of the second session of the 112th Congress on January 2, 2013, thus including the date, February 8, 2012, on which the NLRB issued the order under review. There is no need for the Court to decide either the question of intrasession versus intersession recess appointments or the impact of “pro forma” meetings on intrasession recesses.

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