A Question from the Audience

Yes, I do imagine you all to be white people, now that you mention it.

 Maybe I shouldn't confess that, but it is my default setting from childhood.

Is there any reason, at all, for the Congress to take orders from either the Executive or the Court as to when it is or isn't in session? If the Trumpized Court declared in his favor, why should the Congress take that as having any power to determine that they are adjourned?

No.  This would provoke a "real" Constitutional crisis.  But it's as likely as the coronavirus just "going away...like a miracle."

First:  McConnell would have to decide the Congress should adjourn (i.e., bring this session of this Congress, which is measured in the two-year increments of the House elections to a close), and use that to declare a "disagreement" on the adjournment of Congress.  That might lead even Lindsay Graham and John Cornyn to object.  Maybe.

McConnell has said distinctly he has no interest in this route, but imagine it were possible that he did.  Then what?

Second:  Based on this "disagreement," POTUS would have to invoke Art. 2, sec. 3, and declare Congress adjourned until a date set by him.

Third:  if the House ignored that (as Pelosi certainly would), POTUS would presumably be the only person with standing to take that case to the courts.  I'm not sure right off whether the Supremes would have original jurisdiction in such a matter (I think they would, but I'm just not certain), but they'd certainly grab it from whatever district court it was filed in if they didn't have original jurisdiction.

Fourth:  if the Court rules in favor of POTUS, shit hits the fan.  This is a case of first impression.  The Court would be better to stay out of it, but then they didn't stay out of Bush v. Gore when they should have.  Still, this is a clash of titans, and the main weakness the Court has is that it has no power to enforce an order against Congress.  It can declare a law passed by Congress constitutionally infirm; it can interpret the laws past by Congress in ways Congress can complain it never meant (see, e.g., RFRA).  But the simple fact is:  Art. I gives the Congress the power to make its own rules. (For example, if a House member is expelled from the House, he/she cannot sue for reinstatement.  The courts won't touch that case with a club.)  Adjournment is part of that power.  Is Congress complying by its own rules when McConnell does Trump's bidding and blows up the agreemen to adjourn on 1/3/21?  Does the Court want to adjudicate when Congress is following its rules, which Congress alone can impose and Congress alone (in each house) can enforce?

No, I think not.  Okay, so skip to:

Five:  what if the Court does go along with Trump and says Congress must go home?  The Senate has adjourned, in this scenario, and the House has not.  How does the Court enforce its order?  Order the Representatives to go home and stop conducting any business?  That sets the Court superior to a house of Congress.  That's unconstitutional on its face.  Embarass itself and prompt a Constitutional crisis as grave as secession by issuing an order it can't possibly enforce.  What, do they send U.S. Marshalls to arrest House members trying to enter the chamber of their offices?  Declare the House adjourned and give Trump the power to appoint Mickey Mouse to a federal judgeship? (And I'm a bit unclear whether he can do that, as federal judges are lifetime appointments, but recess appointments cannot be by definition.  Plays hell with the judicial system to have a judge who might not sit long enough to see a case filed in his court to completion.  Part of the reason for lifetime appointments is stability.  Eliminate that and suddenly judges are puppets of the POTUS.)

Shit goes downhill fast, IOW, in ways even Kavanaugh and Gorsuch won't stomach (Thomas, as ever, is a closet anarchist, IMHO).

Sixth:  Trump will never do it, because Trump will never put himself in a position of being responsible for something.  The only reason he's in court now is to prevent the House from getting information.  He can blame them for his "problems."  He will never go to court to get something he wants; he might be responsible for the results.

To repeat myself:

BIDEN: "What bothers me so much is the President of the United States doesn't take responsibility. The President of the United States acts like nothing is his fault, nothing is his responsibility."

— Ryan Struyk (@ryanstruyk) April 16, 2020

That is Trump through and through.  Nothing is his fault, nothing is his responsibility.  He only wants the credit for what happens, but if he makes something happen, then he has to take the responsibility for it.  Why else would he blame China, Obama, the WHO, and state governors, for the current crisis in this country?  He can never be responsible, he can only be rewarded for his leadership.  It doesn't work that way, of course, which is why he offers no leadership at all.