Congress Should be Appointing Appellate Judges

    I suggest that were we to follow the Constitution, Congress should be appointing appellate federal judges, not the president.

   In Article I, Section 8, it gives Congress power "To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court."

   If that is not clear enough, it only gives the president authority to appoint Supreme Court justices, not appellate judges.  In Article II, it says that if elsewhere in the Constitution it provides for someone else to appoint officers, then that should be the case. Elsewhere in the Constitution, in Article I, Section 8, as we said, it does specify that Congress should be constituting -- and that would include making the appointments -- the appellate judges. Read this:

   ". . . he shall nominate, and . . . shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges to the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for." 

    And, there remains one more indication in the Constitution, In Section III -- which is about the judicial branch -- it says: "The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts a the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.

   It gives Congress -- not the president -- authority to establish inferior Courts. This is in line with what is suggested in the other two places in the Constitution.