Unconstitutional Recess Appointments Haven’t Helped Obama in the Polls

It has just been over a week since President Obama made his “recess” appointments to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the National Labor Relations Board. I suggested last week that this might turn out to be Obama’s “Court‐​Packing” moment, where he begins to discover that (some) Americans actually do care about the Constitution. While its clearly too early to say anything with certainty, it appears I may have been correct.


On January 3th, the day before the appointments, Obama’s job approval ratings, according to RealClearPolitics, averaged 47.2 approval and 47.8 disapproval. Basically a tie.


Today, his job approval is at 44.5 and disapproval is 50.3. Moving over the course of a week from a tie to a spread of almost 6 percentage points. 


Usually we have not seen such large changes over the course of a week. Now obviously one cannot contribute all this decline to the recess appointments, but there were no other big Presidential announcements or even big economic news over the last week that could account for such a slide in support. So while this doesn’t prove anything, it does suggest these appointments, even if they are making his base happy, are coming at the expense of the support of independents.