Posted on 01/04/2012 10:18:49 PM PST by Libloather
Republican lawmaker: Obama recess appointment is attack on Constitution
By Pete Kasperowicz - 01/04/12 12:39 PM ET
House Financial Services Committee Chairman Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.) on Wednesday predicted that the Obama administration's decision to recess-appoint Richard Cordray as director of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) would lead to numerous legal challenges against the agency that will render it unable to function for the foreseeable future.
"President Obama has delegitimized the CFPB and has opened the agency up to legitimate legal challenges that will cripple it for years," Bachus said. "The greatest threat to our economy right now is uncertainty, and the president just guaranteed there will be even more uncertainty."
Bachus did not threaten a legal challenge from Congress, and others have suggested that only a financial institution that is harmed by a CFPB rule would have the standing to challenge Cordray's appointment.
Still, Bachus was one of a several Republicans who blasted the Cordray nomination as an end-run around what had been an established rule that no recess appointments can be made as long as the Senate is meeting in occasional, pro forma sessions. The Senate met in a pro forma session Tuesday and has another one planned for Friday.
Bachus said the decision to ignore this precedent is an attack on the Constitution.
"The President's unprecedented decision to attempt to circumvent the Constitution and ignore the law he himself signed is the clearest indication yet that he has abandoned any effort to work in a bipartisan manner to strengthen accountability and oversight of this new government bureaucracy," he said.
Bachus said Republicans have sought to modify the CFPB, including by creating a five-member board to run the agency and setting up a process for reviewing CFPB rules. These changes were included in a bill that passed the House last year.
The sponsor of that bill, Rep. Sean Duffy (R-Wis.), also complained about the recess appointment on Wednesday.
"I am deeply disappointed in President Obama's decision to circumvent Congress and completely disregard our government's system of checks and balances in order to appoint a director to the flawed CFPB," Duffy said.
Duffy noted that more than 40 senators told Obama last year that they would oppose any nomination to the CFPB as it currently stands. "President Obama's decision to ignore these concerns has set a horrible precedent of allowing the president to side-step Congress and the American people at his own convenience," he said.
One of the signatories to the Senate letter, Sen. Mike Johanns (R-Neb.), said Wednesday that he too is "deeply disappointed" in the White House announcement.
"Republicans have asked the president to work with us to give the newly created — and extremely powerful — board a level of transparency and accountability," Johanns said. "Americans don't want another unelected czar with no accountability appointed by this administration. But the president is choosing to dismiss these concerns in favor of political convenience."
Congress could go directly to the Supreme Court for a ruling.
-PJ
Any confidence in McConnel or Boehner?
Hell NO.
Couple of eunichs.
Yeah, I remember the cheers here FR when Bush did it...
Let’s be very clear — No President in my lifetime has shown the contempt for Our Constitution and Way of life that this guy and his Party have made manifest these past three years.
Yet Congress— the House has NOT yet considered IMPEACHMENT?
Perhaps they are too busy leaning against the wall.(the one that has divided this nation against itself -erected in 1947 by Court mandate) Perhaps they are already dhimmi?
Obama’s starting to look like a bully.
Were Bush recess appointments allowed to do through during Dingy Harry’s pro forma sessions?
Bush didn’t make any appointments when the Dems held their “pro forma” sessions.
All his recess appointments were made when Congress was officially in recess.
Too bad, it sounds like he would have gotten away with it.
We have to face it. Obama and his enablers are rats seeking holes in our Constitution and laws i.e. change. It also shows how stupid/naive elected representatives can be. The really concerned ones still don’t understand that to stop a stampede of wild/evil people you have get in front of them. Anticipating what the Obama crowd might pull off is part of the game our representatives should be handling.
No, the howl from the MSM and the left would have been deafening for weeks on end. SEIU, Acorn, Code Pink, and a thousand other liberal organizations would have protested immediately. He might have been able to get away with it, but the political price would have been too high. Obama doesn't have to worry about any of that.
Bush wouldn't do it anyway, he actually has respect for our Constitution IMHO.
Good points.
Politically (and “public relationswise”) this needs to be addressed in the Senate as an abuse of power and an affront to that body.
Not by all Republicans as a group but by one as an individual- one Senator refusing “unanimous consent” until the Senate took up and dealt with the issue.
One of the RINO girls from Maine could make an historic name for herself.
. “Clause 4: Neither House, during the Session of Congress, shall, without the Consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other Place than that in which the two Houses shall be sitting.”
Boehner didn’t recess the House, and they have been having pro-forma sessions. Congress is NOT in recess, so Obama has violated the Constitution WRT his recess appointments."
You are concerned with obama violating the Constitution?
Obama himself is a violation of the Constitution WRT:
Article 2, Section 1 Clause 5:
No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.
Bush's version of that was the bill signing statements(dems were crying ‘Dictator’ and ‘unconstitutional’ over those at the time) , which Obama promised not to do and now he is doing them himself for the same reason as he did this, for political reasons.
I am telling you that this issue is going no place for Republicans unless the new agency does something that really draws negative attention to itself that Republicans can use against Obama, maybe like the national labor relations board going after Boeing SC plant did with NLRB.
The agency will (this year) cherry pick cases that look like they are helping the little guy voter to fight the big bad greedy bankers, and Obama is working that into his “Republicans only care about the millionaires and billionaires “ act he used to win the FICA battle.
And it is going no-where in the courts because unlike Obama-care in this case the courts will demand a plaintiff with standing to even look at it which means someone who lost something due to the agencies actions, yep, that greedy banker as Obama will portray it. Then you got the problem that the US constitution doesn't define 'recess'.
The FICA extension battle comes up again soon, Are congressional Republicans going to try to look stupid again or do they actually have a plan this time to put Obama on the defensive? This is turning out even worse than I thought it would.
I won’t hold my breath thinking that any politician will hold Obama’s feet to the fire, either.
McConnell is dead to me if he doesn’t do something about this. Boehner has done his best by keeping Congress open.
The Chamber of Commerce is considering a lawsuit.
In any case, it will take time for this to come to fruition, and I think it’s going to take some entity other than Congress to get the court’s attention.
Although, the best entity to sue would be Congress.
The good thing is that we do have the Constitution, and it’s as plain as day what is said there.
Sometimes good things happen.
~Pollyanna
;o)
Give it some time. This just happened yesterday. There are people looking into their options.
I am much more pessimistic than you about Republicans chances and ability to do anything about this, including turn it into a negative for Obama. This is just a part of his re-election theme about not waiting for congress to act on ' helping the middle class'.
As has been pointed out here the US constitution doesn't define specifically what ‘congressional recess’ means. Obama(and Democrats) say it was 'in recess', congressional Republicans says it wasn't. The courts don't like to get involved with procedural disagreements between congress and the WH.
Obama is proof that you are mistaken.
The Constitution has been ignored by both political parties, and the majority of Freepers and many Conservatives just shrug it off.
Shameful.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.