i'm peter wallison, a senior fellow at the american enterprise institute. i will mediate the panel. the relevant sections of the constitution are up there on the chart. we will be dealing mostly with article 2 section 2 clause 3 which says the presidential have the power to fill up all vacancies that may happen during the ves of the senate by granting commissions which shall expire at the end of their next session. there's a lot in this single sentence, it seems to me, we should find helpful in understanding the issue we'll be dealing with. first, the language says that the president has the power to fill vacancies that happen during the ves of the senate. this is quite limiting language and seems to me that the president was not intended to have the power to fill vacancies that happened while the senate was actually in session. none of 3 cess appointments we'll be talking about today actually occurred during a recess. they all occurred while the senate was in session. so right away, there is a question whether the president has the power to fill any of these vacancies. second, the