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Redstate...
Senate
Plans to Abdicate its
Confirmation Duties
The Obama Czars will trump the
constitution.
Posted by Daniel Horowitz
Tuesday,
June 21
In
recent years, the job of United
States Senator has evidently been added to the list of ‘jobs that
Americans
won’t do.’ Harry
Reid’s Senate has
categorically shirked its core constitutional responsibility by
refusing to
pass a budget for over two years.
Concurrently,
the Senate has been
preoccupied with feckless, unconstitutional legislation that fails to
deal with
any of the paramount public policy problems facing the nation.
Today,
Chuck Schumer, with the help of
Mitch McConnell and Lamar Alexander, plans to vitiate one of the
Senate’s few
remaining constitutional duties; advising and consenting to
presidential
appointees. The
Presidential Appointment
Efficiency and Streamlining Act (S.679), which was never reported out
of a
committee, would eliminate the confirmation requirement for 200
presidential
appointees. This
bill would completely
abrogate the safeguards against tyranny that were established in the
“Appointments Clause” of the constitution.
[The Heritage Foundation has a useful primer
on the bill.]
The
bill has seven Republican
co-sponsors: Lamar
Alexander, Scott
Brown, Susan Collins, Mike Johanns, Jon Kyl, Richard Lugar, and Mitch
McConnell.
One
would think that without the
inconvenient burden of dealing with the budget process, the Senate
would have
plenty of time to execute its ‘advise and consent’ duties. They are claiming that the
confirmation
process is too cumbersome and time-consuming, and as such, is
precluding other
more important legislation. The
reality
is just the opposite. Their
abdication
of their core responsibilities has left them with nothing other than
executive
confirmations on their plate. Senator
Marco Rubio succinctly observes the priorities of the Senate in a piece
for the
Daily Caller today:
Meanwhile,
in the five months I have
been in the Senate, Democratic leaders have focused on a
reauthorization of the
Federal Aviation Administration, a patent bill, a bill to increase
spending on
the Small Business Administration and a plan to increase spending on
the Economic
Development Administration, a relic of the Great Society that funnels
debt-financed cash to states and localities (never mind that the
president’s
own Fiscal Commission recommended eliminating it entirely).
The
Senate has taken just 91 roll call
votes, many on non-controversial nominations, and a third of our time
has been
spent in “quorum calls,” literally doing nothing. No one should be
under any
illusion about the desire of leaders in the Senate to confront our
sagging
economy and looming debt crisis.
Now,
they have the moxie to complain
that the confirmation process is distracting them from more important
legislation!
Undoubtedly,
there is a need to
expedite the presidential appointee process.
However, ceding more power to an
administration that is overzealous to
impose policy by administrative fiat, is not the way to go. Congress has slowly
abjured its power to the
executive branch by writing open-ended legislation, granting federal
agencies
wide latitude to promulgate destruction over our economy. Obama has already used
radical executive
appointees for the purpose of consolidating power in the executive
branch. Why would
any Republican sign on to such a
dangerous expansion of executive power?
Whom do they think Obama will appoint to these
positions if there is no
oversight?
Here’s
a novel idea for streamlining
the confirmation process of presidential appointees: shrink the size of
government so there will be no need for most of these jobs. It’s high time for
Congress to halt its
self-immolation, and reign in the executive department behemoth.
Read
it at Redstate
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