For example, it refused to endorse a commission of inquiry to investigate atrocities committed by the Burmese junta.
Earlier this year, they refused to endorse a commission proposal that Germany and Portugal should be warned under the rules governing the management of Europe's single currency, although the commission seemed to be on legally very solid ground.And now this.
In 2001, President George W. Bush endorsed a report from a commission chaired by former presidents Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford recommending, among other things, that Election Day be moved to Veterans Day — the better to entice Americans to vote as a patriotic duty.
Pushback from senators on the panel led Brennan to endorse a "congressional commission" on expanding legal authorities available to US security agencies to access encrypted data, and insisted he did not back a mechanism "perceived as a backdoor".
They also endorsed a plan to create a commission to study reparations for descendants of slaves, a topic that NAN founder Al Sharpton pressed them on and that many attendees strongly favored.
Eleven of the 18 members of President Obama's fiscal commission endorsed a $4 trillion deficit reduction package, but only after months of private deliberations.
Sarkozy broadly endorsed a high-level military commission's recommendations in June for big troop and base cuts (with financial savings going into better equipment), more stress on intelligence, and the reintegration of French forces into NATO's military command.
Meanwhile, the president's bipartisan deficit commission endorsed a three-year pay freeze and a 200,000-person reduction of the federal workforce.
Now, the Vatican is stepping into the political controversy surrounding climate change by endorsing a study commissioned by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, the Vatican's non-denominational scientific arm, which makes the case for a strong policy response to the risks posed by the accumulation of greenhouse-gas emissions in the atmosphere.
The commission had endorsed a package of 28 recommendations late last week, prior to the release of the full report.
