I’m sorry to see it come to this.
The White House has just announced that President Obama has made fifteen recess appointments, including several for hot-button nominees. These are appointees Republicans refused to allow votes on and for which the president’s supporters have been pressing for recess appointees.
Notable on the list are Craig Becker to NLRB and Chai Feldblum to EEOC.
In arguing for the appointments the press release states: "President Bush had made 15 recess appointments by this point in his presidency, but he was not facing the same level of obstruction. At this time in 2002, President Bush had only 5 nominees pending on the floor. By contrast, President Obama has 77 nominees currently pending on the floor, 58 of whom have been waiting for over two weeks and 44 of those have been waiting more than a month."…
Inserted from <TPM>
I’ll be the first one to admit that I screamed bloody murder when Bush did the exact same thing. But there’s a difference. Democrats only filibustered most extreme ideologues, and even then, only to sensitive posts. Ob the whole, the left has been quite disappointed with Obama’s appointments, because most of them are so centrist. Considering the role we played in putting him into office, he has denied us our fair share of seats at the table. Still, the GOP had blocked virtually all of them. Therefore, Obama’s recess appointments are completely justified.
For the complete list, click through to the source.
9 Responses to “Recess Appointments!”
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I like it! The Repubs have been such obstructionists about this, it’s about time he got some through, I hope he does all 77 this week. The Dems didn’t even filibuster Alito and he’s far more dangerous.
Don’t remind me, Lisa. I was burning up the phone lines. That is when the GOP threatened the nuclear option and seven cowardly blue dogs went along with them.
I loved seeing this happen. The Dems and Obama might now get that the party of NO should be skipped over at every opportunity.
Marva, I’m not that optomistic, but that’s what needs to be done.
Digging even deeper into the numbers:
•President Obama currently has a total of 217 nominees pending before the Senate. These nominees have been pending for an average of 101 days, including 34 nominees pending for more than 6 months.
•The 15 nominees President Obama intends to recess appoint have been pending for an average of 214 days or 7 months for a total of 3204 days or almost 9 years.
Source:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/president-obama-announces-recess-appointments-key-administration-positions
I’m sure the Right will scream bloody murder about this but they left him no choice. I guess they would say the same about the ones Bush appointed during recesses. I figure, serves them right!
Of course, the difference is 77 versus 5.
I’m glad as hell about these recess appointments. The Republicans have left Obama no choice. If every law has to be passed through reconciliation and every position filled by recess appointment, then that’s what Obama has to do. I hope the Republicans are enjoying getting pushed further and further out into the margins, because this is the result. It’s what they’ve reaped.
You’re so right, Tim. When both Bush and Obama made recess appointments, the cause was GOP extremism.