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"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.
The Grand Strategy Behind Obama’s Recess Appointment
By Jonathan Chait
.... It’s 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 Dodd–Frank 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 Congress’s hands. Obama’s 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 can’t 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 won’t pass, like new infrastructure spending. Part involves taking unilateral steps that bypass Congress, like executive orders or recess appointments. Obama’s political advisers believe that this makes him look strong and demonstrates his desire for action. I was skeptical it would work, but Obama’s approval ratings have indeed climbed.
3. Welcoming Wall Street’s hatred. ...
-snip-
4. Trapping Mitt Romney. Obama’s 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 Romney’s strong support for repealing Dodd–Frank. 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
By Jonathan Chait
.... It’s 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 Dodd–Frank 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 Congress’s hands. Obama’s 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 can’t 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 won’t pass, like new infrastructure spending. Part involves taking unilateral steps that bypass Congress, like executive orders or recess appointments. Obama’s political advisers believe that this makes him look strong and demonstrates his desire for action. I was skeptical it would work, but Obama’s approval ratings have indeed climbed.
3. Welcoming Wall Street’s hatred. ...
-snip-
4. Trapping Mitt Romney. Obama’s 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 Romney’s strong support for repealing Dodd–Frank. 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:
Wonkbook: The radical Republican tactic behind Obama’s controversial nominations
-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. That’s the key thread connecting these recess appointments — and why other languishing nominees haven’t 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
-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. That’s the key thread connecting these recess appointments — and why other languishing nominees haven’t 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
23 replies
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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. 
Or "pressure from the Left," or some such.
