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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums"The Grand Strategy Behind Obama’s Recess Appointment" 4 important battles the WH is waging(Updated)
Last edited Thu Jan 5, 2012, 12:03 PM - Edit history (1)
Please check out the additional explanation by Ezra Klein that I added after the initial article by Chait. It points out a very important distinction between the 4 recess appointed positions and the rest of the nominees also being held up by Congress.
By Jonathan Chait
.... Its an important move that brings together four important battles the Obama administration is waging:
1. Nullification. Fights between Congress and the president over presidential appointments have gone on for decades. But Senate Republicans have taken the fight to a new level by using the power to deny appointments to require changes in the laws. The DoddFrank financial reform established the C.F.R.B., but Wall Street hates it, and Republicans openly vowed not to confirm any director unless Obama agreed to weaken the law.
So Obama tried the audacious and legally indeterminate move of simply declaring the pro-forma session a sham, insisting Congress really was on recess, and appointing his man. If it stands up to the likely legal challenge the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is threatening to sue Obama will have taken a dangerous new weapon out of Congresss hands. Obamas maneuver may stand, or it may lead to a further reform of the confirmation process. But allowing Congress to functionally eliminate full-passed laws simply by denying the president any appointments to carry them out is a dangerous precedent that Obama would be derelict if he allowed to stand.
2. We cant wait. ...
-snip-
Instead he is dramatizing his opposition to Congress, making it clear that Republicans are standing in the way of his economic program. Part of the agenda entails talking up bills he knows Congress wont pass, like new infrastructure spending. Part involves taking unilateral steps that bypass Congress, like executive orders or recess appointments. Obamas political advisers believe that this makes him look strong and demonstrates his desire for action. I was skeptical it would work, but Obamas approval ratings have indeed climbed.
3. Welcoming Wall Streets hatred. ...
-snip-
4. Trapping Mitt Romney. Obamas primary charge against Mitt Romney is likely to be that he wants to return to the Bush era. The accusation will have several points to bolster it lock in Bush-era tax levels for the rich, let insurance companies discriminate against families with a pre-existing condition but the most powerful is Romneys strong support for repealing DoddFrank. The accusation has resonance because Romney comes from the world of finance, has drawn extremely strong support from finance, and he simply looks like a stereotypical Wall Street shark.
If I were Obama, I would want to set up financial reform as the number one contrast issue of the presidential election. Appointing Cordray to the post is a good step to establishing the contrast. And Romney, perhaps still concerned about a conservative primary threat, seems to be walking right into the trap.
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/01/grand-strategy-behind-obamas-recess-appointment.html
Important explanation from Ezra Klein on WHY President Obama did this with these 4 specific spots:
-snip-
The less obvious, but perhaps more true, interpretation is that Wednesday's appointments are a salvo in an ongoing war over a controversial tactic that's Thomas Mann has dubbed "a modern-day form of nullification.
Obama made four recess appointments on Wednesday. One of them lifted Richard Cordray to head of the Consumer Financial protection Bureau. Another added three members to the National Labor Relations Board. But despite having hundreds of nominees outstanding -- including for important positions like the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors and the FDIC -- Obama didn't pull a Teddy Roosevelt and make 160 appointments on the same day. Why? What makes these four nominees different from all other nominees?
The answer is that, without them, the institutions they're intended to lead will fail. Obama's maneuver was about the agencies, not the appointees. In the absence of a director, the CFPB can't exercise its powers. The expiration of Craig Becker's term on the NLRB, meanwhile, means the board is about to fall from three members to two members -- a number that the Supreme Court has ruled is less than a legal quorum, and so a number that means the NLRB cannot make binding rulings.
This is not an accident: Republicans have straightforwardly argued that they would obstruct the confirmation of any and all nominees to the CFPB until the Obama administration agreed to radically reform the agency. They were, in other words, using their power to block nominations to hold kill or change agencies that they didn't have the votes to reform through the normal legislative order. Much the same has been happening at the NLRB. A That's what Mann means when he invokes "nullification": just as the original nullification crisis was about states refusing to implement federal laws that their representatives did not have the votes to overturn, the modern-day incarnation features Republicans refusing to implement laws they don't have the votes to overturn. And this is what Obama is fighting.
As Brian Beutler puts it, Obama's maneuver "does more than fill vacancies. It actually restores the power the agency was given under the law power Republicans were hoping to strip without passing new legislation. Thats the key thread connecting these recess appointments and why other languishing nominees havent been recess appointed." So though Obama is setting a new precedent with this move, it's not clear that the precedent he intends to set is related to the obstruction of nominees. Rather, it seems related to Republican attempts to use the nomination process to undermine agencies they dislike.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/wonkbook-the-radical-republican-tactic-behind-obamas-controversial-nominations/2012/01/05/gIQAeKLTcP_blog.html
BlancheSplanchnik
(20,219 posts)a lotta people accuse tea-pukes et al of simplistic thinking, then turn around and hate on Obama for not simplistically addressing everything and fixing it all.
He is taking big risks here to move in the interests of all of US. Pretty clear he is done with trying to bring two sides to cooperation.
This post gives some insight into the greater vision that is required to maneuver in a completely hostile and manipulative environment.
Unfortunately, complexity and strategy like this is NOT "sexy", not "soundbitey", NOT "Heavy-Artillery Shock! Awe!" sensationalism, so...many people may be unable to understand the strength and courage in this.
I'd really like it if a lot of people here (and outside of DU-world) read this.
Protecting peoples' interests is much more complex than propagating the repuke interests of war and big business. Protecting people, their health acre, wages, rights to justice, national protection, trade, budgeting, differing demographics and their differing issues-----all of this is infinitely more complex than safeguarding white billionaires and their corporations.
Pirate Smile
(27,617 posts)President Obama recess appointed the specific positions he did. It makes it clear that the decision is even more complex then the initial article explained.
BlancheSplanchnik
(20,219 posts)to help make the process understandable. I sure don't understand it, that's why I'm grateful for you and others here to help me get some beginning of the bigger picture!!!!!!!!
The rise of profit based Infotainment and stooping to the lowest common denominator, the marriage of corporate billions and the repuke party has done away with critical thinking. Emotion-based "gut thinking" (no more higher thinking, it's all about base instincts for the christo-corporate-right wing) is what we have to fight against now.
Spazito
(50,365 posts)the media and the repubs' primary focus was on the Cordray appointment when, imo, the appointments to the NLRB are equally important.
Pirate Smile
(27,617 posts)(nulification) really strengthens the Obama Administrations legal arguments.
Obama Administration officials (like Gene Sperling) always bring this up when I see them interviewed BUT the press hasn't caught on yet.
Spazito
(50,365 posts)when it comes to the mainstream media, imo, it doesn't serve their purpose to inform hence they do not. They choose, instead, to inflame and project the misinformation that best suits their need for ratings.
Pirate Smile
(27,617 posts)even people on our side - Lawrence, Rachel, etc. Come on, people! There is a big issue here. Take a big bite. Maybe they will today. Perhaps the first day was just too fast for all the facts to shake out.
Spazito
(50,365 posts)Lawrence, Rachel, etc., are responding to the overall question of the President's authority to do what he did and the faux outrage over it by the repubs as opposed to focusing on the 4 appointments equally.
Once the hoopla settles down re the Cordray appointment, they may well turn their attention to the NLRB appointments and the importance of them which will, I have little doubt, cause the repubs to do the 'hair on fire' response all over again. The more times the repubs do the 'hair on fire' hyperbole, the less the public pays attention as it smacks of crying wolf all too often.
Pirate Smile
(27,617 posts)Spazito
(50,365 posts)are starting to garner attention so it is certainly a good opening to cover the appointments in more depth.
alcibiades_mystery
(36,437 posts)Or "pressure from the Left," or some such.
Tx4obama
(36,974 posts)Spazito
(50,365 posts)It certainly makes sense to me.
The decision to make the 4 recess appointments, Mr. Cordray and the three appointments to the National Labor Relations Board (Deputy Labor Secretary Sharon Block, union lawyer Richard Griffin and NLRB counsel Terence Flynn) is a definite challenge to the sham called "pro-forma" sessions.
I wonder if it really will get challenged all the way to the USSC by those in opposition, it is a big risk, imo.
I suspect the challenge, were it to come, would be based not on the validity of the "pro-forma" session question but on the issue of right to adjourn for more than 3 days requirement of consent from both Houses.
Certainly "Wall Street" and the banks, etc, are in the spotlight of the American public now and they are not looked upon favorably at all.
Thanks for posting this, it was a good synopsis of the varied aspects of President Obama's decision.
CaliforniaPeggy
(149,639 posts)It shows strength of mind and a full knowledge of what he (and we) are up against.
He is taking the fight to the intransigent Republicans, and I hope he continues to do so.
It shows Obama at his finest.
Odin2005
(53,521 posts)zipplewrath
(16,646 posts)It is arguable who invented the "pro forma" strategy, but the conflict here, as accurately described by the articles, is over the minorities ability to block legislation after the fact by opposing the appointments to ensure their enaction. Obama's assertion that the congress is in recess is very defensible. However, the power he is attempting to exercise, recess appointments, rests upon a purpose that no longer really exists. This power was created so that the government could continue to function when congress literally wasn't around. Congress wasn't always "continuously" in session, and calling them back wasn't a trival exercise. That reason doesn't really exist, any more than these pro forma sessions constitute a congress that is "in session".
The real underlying problem here is that congress can "shut down" the government through inaction by the minority. That wasn't the way the system was intended to work. "Power vacuums" were intentionally avoided in the structure of our government. It is why the failure to act in many cases has a definition, whether it is a failure to actually sign a law by the president, or the failure of congress to impeach an impeachable actor, results in a conclusion.
The real solution here is to recognize that the senate must sooner, or later, either reject an appointee, or confirm them. We may want to limit which offices deserve these "up or down" votes, but it would seem that something such as an office which allows a department to function AT ALL, would be included. That, and the confirmation of a new VP.
But if that existed, several Bush appointees would probably have been confirmed. Bolton comes to mind. (Although it is dubious that UN Ambassador would qualify for this classification since a Sec State could fill the role personally). A bit like the "nuclear option" that the GOP talked about with Bush, this conflict, depending upon how Obama "wins" it, could hurt in the very near future.
bhikkhu
(10,718 posts)We may be unique in the developed world for benefiting from a government crippled-by-design, so the people we elect to run it can't do much.
Pirate Smile
(27,617 posts)AtomicKitten
(46,585 posts)link: http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/01/the-hidden-benefit-of-obamas-hardball-consumer-watchdog-gambit.php
We should keep in mind that had the president recess-appointed Cordray the day before in the tiny window of opportunity between sessions, the appointment would have been for one year. However, waiting until the next day in the official second session of Congress, the Cordray appointment will be for two years. Very smart strategy here.
Tarheel_Dem
(31,235 posts)Pirate Smile
(27,617 posts)pa28
(6,145 posts)It's been three years now but it seems to me that President Obama has finally dipped his toe into the water during the past six weeks. He's used the power of his office by itself to benefit working Americans and challenged Republicans to fight him in public.
Combining the payroll tax win, the recess appointments and today's defense budget speech I'd say Obama is on a roll. It's winner and opinion polls during the past few weeks back it up.