Thursday, February 2, 2012

Goose and Gander

I could accept the tit for tat argument, but to make it about the Republicans thwarting a president is ... at best, simplistic.



Dem to Lee: 'You got what you deserved' on Cordray

Washington Examiner
 
Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., gave "a rebuke" to a Republican senator testifying in a House hearing today about President Obama's controversial recess appointments, which were made when the Senate was not actually in recess. Connolly, who represents the inner suburbs of Northern Virginia, said that Senate Republicans brought the unprecedented maneuver on themselves by obstructing President Obama's agenda.

"You got what you deserved," Connolly told Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah. "I guess, with all due respect, consider this a rebuke." Connolly criticized Senate Republicans for attempting to block the installment of Richard Cordray as head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Obama made two other recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board, who been announced so recently that no paperwork had been submitted to the Senate and no confirmation hearings held.

"I believe that a statement by 44 Republican senators in the United States Senate announcing that they are going to try to thwart the implementation of a duly-passed law," Connolly said, is "a second extra-constitutional bite at the apple to thwart its implementation when you didn't have the votes to defeat it."

Lee explained in the hearing that the Republicans refused to allow a vote on Cordray because the law creating the CFPB was designed into protect it from congressional oversight. The law actually prevents future Congresses from defunding the bureau. "It enjoys an unusual degree of insulation from the normal controls on any government and that degree of insulation has historically been reserved for despots," Lee told House Oversight and Government Reform Chair Darrell Issa, R-Calif.

Connolly did acknowledge that he believes presidents have long "abused" the power to make recess appointments, but he argued that it "has nothing to do with this president per se; it is a long-standing institutional and constitutional issue."









dems

Make Mine Freedom - 1948


American Form of Government

Who's on First? Certainly isn't the Euro.