united-states us-constitution us-senate parliamentary-procedure
Can a quorum call in the US Senate &quot;annul&quot; a pro forma session? Would this mean that the Senate would go into recess?
<p>I recently watched <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDYFiq1l5Dg" rel="nofollow noreferrer">CGP Grey's video on the Supreme Court nomination process</a>, which discusses (among other things) the use of pro forma sessions of the US Senate to keep the President from making recess appointments.  As I understood it, a single senator can call the Senate to order and then immediately adjourn the session.  While there is not a quorum of senators present, a quorum is presumed to exist unless someone makes a quorum call;  and so one senator can call the Senate to order and adjourn it so long as they &quot;don't notice&quot; that there's nobody there.</p>
<p>Would it be possible for another senator to throw a monkey wrench into the works in the following scenario?</p>
<ol>
<li>After an adjournment of three days, Senator A calls the Senate to order for they assume to be a pro forma session.  Senator B is sitting in the back row.  No other senators are present.</li>
<li>Senator B immediately raises a point of order:  the Senate cannot be called to order without a quorum.  This session cannot occur without 51 senators present.</li>
<li>The president, noting that an adjournment has lasted longer than three days, argues that the Senate is <em>de facto</em> not in session, and makes a whole passel of recess appointments.</li>
</ol>
<p>I'm sure that the answer is &quot;this wouldn't work&quot;, or someone would have tried it;  one could easily imagine a scenario in which the President &amp; Senator B were in the same party and agreed to pull a stunt like this.  So my questions are:</p>
<ul>
<li>Would Step 2 work?  Can a senator block the Senate from being calling to order via a quorum call?</li>
<li>If Step 2 would work, would the &quot;de facto&quot; argument in Step 3 work?  (This is obviously a heavier lift.)</li>
</ul>
<p>This is related to <a href="https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/60032/could-senators-convene-congress-by-objecting-to-the-closing-of-a-pro-forma-sessi">this question</a>, but that one was asking about whether a pro forma session could be turned into a &quot;real&quot; session by making a quorum call.  My question is whether a senator could effectively &quot;cancel&quot; a pro forma session by making a quorum call, and whether this could give a President the power to make recess appointments.</p>

<h2>No</h2>
<p>The lack of a quorum prevents the Senate from conducting <a href="https://www.senate.gov/reference/reference_index_subjects/Rules_and_Procedure_vrd.htm" rel="nofollow noreferrer">business</a>, however, it is still in session.</p>
