First, the adminstration filed its brief defending the Affordable Care Act -- known in Republican presidential debates as "Obamacare," or the socialist seizing of American democracy. Politico reported Friday:
"The Obama administration on Friday told the Supreme Court that the requirement to buy insurance in its health reform law is well within Congress’s constitutional boundaries — and insisted that legally, the law doesn’t break any new ground.
The 130-page brief is the first the Justice Department has filed since the court agreed to review the law. The Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama’s signature domestic policy accomplishment, will be the centerpiece of three days of oral arguments at the Supreme Court, a modern record, in late March."
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0112/71167.html#ixzz1ivNv7Ap3
The U.S. Solicitor General, Donald Verrilli, will argue the case for the adminstration before the Supremes this summer.
http://www.justice.gov/healthcare/
http://www.justice.gov/osg/
Also, on Wednesday, President Obama made a controversial recess appointment of Richard Cordray’s to lead the nation’s new consumer watchdog agency even as the political fallout intensified.
Cordray, the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, declared Thursday to a packed house at the Brookings Institution that his recess appointment by President Barack Obama — a move that outraged Republicans — is legitimate under the law and would withstand an inevitable challenge. But he also underscored his reputation as a bipartisan bridge-builder, promised he would work with the GOP and emphasized that all share the same goal: serving the American people.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0112/71128.html
As you should have learned, while presidential appointments need Senate confirmation when in session, president's can get around that balancing check, by appointing a director during a legislative recess.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0112/71128.html#ixzz1ivRwFJCm
Presidents since George Washington have made recess appointments. Washington appointed South Carolina judge John Rutledge as Chief Justice of the United States during a congressional recess in 1795. Because of Rutledge's political views and occasional mental illness, however, the Senate rejected his nomination, and Rutledge subsequently attempted suicide and then resigned.
New Jersey judge William J. Brennan was appointed to the Supreme Court by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956 through a recess appointment. This was done in part with an eye on the presidential campaign that year; Eisenhower was running for reelection, and his advisors thought it would be politically advantageous to place a northeastern Catholic on the court. Brennan was promptly confirmed when the Senate came back into session. In 1958, the CIA tried to pull off a coup in Damascus. When the Syrians expelled our ambassador, President Eisenhower, in a recess appointment, designated Charles W. Yost as the new ambassador. Eisenhower made two other recess appointments, Chief Justice Earl Warren and Potter Stewart.
According to the Congressional Research Service, President Bill Clinton made 139 recess appointments. President George W. Bush made 171 recess appointments, and as of December 8, 2011, President Barack Obama had made 28 recess appointments.
4 comments:
I agree with the opponents to Obama's Affordable Care Act. I think it's completely unconstitutional to require someone to pay for health care when they don't want it or can't afford it. While the Justice Department argues that having everyone pay for healthcare will offset the rising prices caused by the free treatments received by those who don't pay for healthcare, I think the greater debt mandatory healthcare will cause for those who can't afford it will only worsen the economy. People will have even less to live off of and therefore less money will be spent on other things. It's a lose-lose situation, because the high prices we have now mean that less people can afford health insurance, but if we put another financial burden on people (especially now), our economic woes will become a greater burden that will affect all Americans, not just the ones who can't afford health care. Whether the government believes it's constitutional or not, I don't think it's a smart decision, at least not when our economy is in such bad condition.
Sorry that you missed it Congress, but Mr. President does have to do his job.
Congress has the great capability to go on recess every once in a while, but while they are gone Washington still works. The President has a job that takes up every hour of every day, and although he does take family vacations every so often, he is always on call. The President has an important role of leadership in this country, and whether or not Congress is in sessions should not stop him from making appointments. He can not just stand by waiting until Congress comes back, otherwise nothing will get done! (But James, nothing is getting done by our government anyway...) Still, its his power, and Congress should stop complaining.
Looks like President Obama was playing hardball on his vacation with appointing Richard Cordary. While many presidential appointment's are not confirmed without a senatorial confirmation Obama is only following presidential precedent. Just as Eisenhower appointed a new Syrian ambassador to deal with the coup in the country, Presidents use the informal power of executive orders to appoint members of the cabinet for future motives. Obama was looking for a person to lead the new consumer agency that also could have bipartisan support in order to bring new policy measures into the consumer industry. With this is mind, Obama by-passed any senate confirmation hearing for Cordray and swiftly appointed him to his new post.
In terms of recess appointments, I don't understand the heavy controversy and criticism. As stated in the blog post, presidents since George Washington have made recess appointments. Why is this? Why can't they just wait for congress to reconvene? Why do they feel the need to side-step congress? Well, the answer is simple. The president is still responsible for overseeing the problems and concerns of America-- this includes when Congress is not in session. Furthermore, in terms of the controversy that surrounds this recess appointment, the precedent speaks for itself. Obama's predecessors, Clinton and Bush, made 139 and 171 recess appointments respectively. Obama has only made 28 thus far. Furthermore, the law protects such an appointment. It has since the early years of the presidency.
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