After making an end run around Senate Republicans to fill the top job at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Wednesday, President Barack Obama ran the same play again a few hours later, making three recess appointments to bring the National Labor Relations Board to full strength.
The president used his power to name Sharon Block, Terence Flynn and Richard Griffin to the board, which arbitrates workplace disputes and federal labor issues and has recently drawn considerable fire from Republicans after it sided with an aircraft workers’ union in a dispute with aerospace giant Boeing.
So what should we think about this? I'd go with the following:
- It's unfortunate;
- It's likely to come back and bite Obama in the future; and
- He's the President and he gets to do things like this.
It doesn't make much sense to complain too much about this sort of thing, because every president I can remember has done the same thing. It's how we got a year of John Bolton at the U.N., among other things. If you don't like Obama acting like a king, there are two things to do. First, vote his butt out of office in November. Then, make it clear that presidents who act like kings will get deposed. Historically there hasn't been much of a price to pay for such behavior, which is why we get it.
Democrats used to complain quite bitterly about Dick Cheney's notions about a unitary executive, but now that Obama is president, they've warmed to the idea considerably. Of course they have. Both parties love to use as much power as they can when they are in a position to wield it. The only power you have, as a citizen, is to stop such things with your ballot. This is an election year, so get to it.
11 comments:
From the Washington Post: Bill Clinton made 139 recess appointments, 95 to full-time positions. George W. Bush made 171 recess appointments, 99 of them were for full-time gigs. As of Wednesday, President Obama has made 32 recess appointments, all of them to full-time positions, according to the White House.
You say it makes no sense to complain, yet you use terms like "nuclear" and "king" in the post. Did you make the same complaints and insults about Bush, or did you just bitch about the obstructionist Senate with their dumb rules that let anyone block nominees? Your hypocrisy shows quite often, Mark, especially for someone so thoughtful.
*especially surprising
GabbroGuy,
How am I being a hypocrite? I never said he didn't have the right to do it. I just said that if you don't like what Obama is doing, the only recourse you have is to vote him out of office. The same thing obtained with both Clinton and Bush.
If you have a list of terms that I'm allowed to use without offending your sensibilities on the subject, please feel free to share them, by the way.
I think a distinction is in order. Mr. D is not a journalist who claims to be non-partisan. He is an interested party. Given that, I think he shows remarkable even-handedness in discussing current events.
Picklesworth,
I agree, for the most part, with your assessment of Mark's temperment. But I might quibble over its remarkableness;)
And I would point to his use of the term nuclear in the first sentence of his memo as proof.
Surely, if anyone has been going the nuclear route, it is the Republicans in the Senate. They have been practicing full blown Nullification for three years now by subverting the intent of the Constitution; Senate confirmation is really supposed to be by majority vote, but Republicans are abusing the procedural loophole known as the filibuster to turn it into a supermajority.
Both sides have been guilty of the overuse of the filibuster in recent years, but the current GOP minotity in the Senate has taken it to new heights. Going off on Obama's constitutionally allowed recess appointments while failing to mention what they are in response to seems a tad short of Fair and Balanced. And it isn't Mark's perogative to be Fair and Balanced. Nor mine to respond to his arguments flaws.
Regards and Happy New Year to all.
Rich
Both sides have been guilty of the overuse of the filibuster in recent years, but the current GOP minotity in the Senate has taken it to new heights. Going off on Obama's constitutionally allowed recess appointments while failing to mention what they are in response to seems a tad short of Fair and Balanced. And it isn't Mark's perogative to be Fair and Balanced. Nor mine to respond to his arguments flaws.
Yep. Which is why my post said:
Both parties love to use as much power as they can when they are in a position to wield it.
I do find the "hypocrisy" charge tiresome, but most people who comment here are, shall we say, nuanced enough to understand why it invariably cuts both ways. ;)
And thank you, WBP -- very nice of you to say what you did.
i think this just shows how the constitution and rule of law are only as valid as the willingness of the one side most eager to to violate them and get away with it.
i'll leave it to history as to what side that is, cause it aint over yet.
Mark,
did you just inadvertently shill for Democrats in the Senate?
Rich
Rich, I try not to shill for anyone. But there is another factor involved in this situation and I should have explained it better in my post:
The Senate may not be meeting, but it is not currently in recess. It is in what is called a "pro forma session," which means that what Obama did yesterday is actually without precedent and may not be constitutional at all. The senators did not call a formal recess precisely because they were trying to block Obama from making any recess appointments at this time.
Should the Senate do this? Maybe not. Probably not, even. But it is the Senate's prerogative to do what it did. And Obama basically told the entire Senate to screw itself. He may get by with it, but I suspect this will be adjudicated soon.
This is what I meant when I said Obama "went nuclear." It is, per my understanding, not a business as usual recess appointment scenario.
Rich,
Further to the last comment this article explains what a pro forma session is and how it was used in 2008 to stop Bush from making recess appointments. Note how pleased the Senate Democrats are to be doing it, too.
When you vote his butt out, you also get to vote out Michelle's butt, which has brought a lot of controversy in Wisconsin lately.
Post a Comment