Saturday, February 18, 2012

Recess Appointments Palooza!

Executive appointments are once again in the news. 

This was once a relatively orderly and legal process that has descended in to anarchy.  And it is entirely the fault of the Democrats.

It started with the treatment of Bork when he was nominated to the Supreme Court, and has gone down hill since that time.

The Democrats refuse to bring any nominee to a vote when the Republicans are in power.  During the Bush administration there was a back log of several hundred appointments.

When the Republicans held the Senate they began to return the favor, blocking review of Democratic nominees.

But here we have something entirely new.

A Democratic president is being blocked by a Democratic Senate.  For the first two years of the Obama presidency, the Democrats had a super majority in the Senate, and could nominate and approve anyone they wanted.  Republicans could not stop them.

Democrats lost the super majority after the 2010 elections, but they still retain control of the Senate.  He is whining that there are some 90 nominees that have not been voted on in the Senate that he controls.

If Harry Reid wanted to schedule votes on these nominees he could.  But he has not.


Democrat Nominees are being blocked by hyper-partisan Harry

Why?  I am guessing that the nominees are so radical or unfit that he cannot get the 50 votes he needs from his own party.  Democrat Senators facing re-election know that they cannot go on record having voted for radicals, communists, and other fellow travelers.  They will get bounced out of office in their state elections.




So we now have the Democratic Senate declining to vote on Democrat nominees and placing the blame on Republicans. 

Harry has now gone so far as to call for Obama to make recess appointments of these nominees.  This is clearly dereliction of his Constitutional duties.  It is crystal clear in the document that the Senate has the power and the DUTY to perform this function.

Harry Reid should be impeached for this.

I will again call for a Constitutional Amendment to address this issue.

I proposed the following changes:

The Senate must vote on every executive appointment within 90 days. Failure to hold vote will be considered dereliction of duty, and will result in the automatic impeachment of all Senators of the party that control the Senate at that time.  Special elections will be held to fill these seats.

All recess appointments shall be subject to Senate confirmation within 30 days of congress being convened.  All officers appointed during a recess shall not remain in that office for more than 120 days.


This will return the process to the balance of power envisioned by the Constitution.



My previous post on this topic:

http://simplemusingssimplemind.blogspot.com/2011/03/executive-appointments-stop-madness.html#!/2011/03/executive-appointments-stop-madness.html

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