King Obama's Power Trip: ILLEGAL Non-Recess Appointments

From Big Peace: In an editorial both Edwin Meese, the former U.S. Attorney General under President Ronald Reagan, and Todd Gaziano, Director of the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, stated that President Obama's unilateral appointment of three individuals to the NLRB and Richard Cordray to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau while the Senate was NOT in recess is a  “breathtaking violation of the separation of powers and the duty of comity that the executive owes to Congress.” 

The authors asserted:

…never before has a president purported to make a “recess” appointment when the Senate is demonstrably not in recess. That is a constitutional abuse of a high order.

The beauty of this editorial is that Mr. Meese and Mr. Gaziano provide instruction to handle this rogue president who continues to thumb his nose at the Constitution. They continue:

President Obama’s flagrant violation of the Constitution not only will damage relations with Congress for years to come but will ultimately weaken the office of the presidency. There eventually may be litigation over the illegal appointments, but it will be a failure of government if the political branches do not resolve this injustice before a court rules…Congressional leaders of both parties must vigorously (though thoughtfully) defend their prerogatives. Senators could filibuster all presidential nominations, as Sen. Robert C. Byrd did in 1985 over a lesser recess appointment issue, until Obama rescinds these wrongful appointments. The House or Senate could condition all “must-pass” legislation for the remainder of 2012 on an agreement to rescind these appointments. The House also could require the attorney general to produce legal justification and testify at oversight hearings.

The authors conclude:

If Congress does not resist, the injury is not just to its branch but ultimately to the people.

Of course as long as Nancy Pelosi gets to advance her agenda, gets her way, she is totally fine with the President abusing his power - the Democrat President.

The Daily Caller points out that in an outrageous move, even more so than his appointment of Richard Cordray to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the President appointed two union lawyers to the NLRB even though the GOP never obstructed his nominees and weren't even given the chance to vet the normal paperwork or do background checks.  These appointments are most certainly unconstitutional since Congress wasn't in recess.

Craig Becker, a radical union leader wrote that “Employers should be stripped of any legally cognizable interest in their employees’ election of representatives.”  Unfortunately for Obama's pro-union radical agenda, Becker's term expired at the end of 2011.  When Congress refused to go to recess so that they could block equally radical outrageous appointments Obama decided to go under the radar while people were fired up over his controversial appointment of Cordray and appoint two union lawyers to the NLRB. 


Here is some information on the two new NLRB appointees from The Daily Caller: 

The little we know about Block and Griffin is not encouraging. Block was a longtime staffer for Senator Ted Kennedy, and is almost certainly a lockstep vote for the Becker agenda of upending employer rights.

Griffin has the dubious distinction of being the second board member ever (Becker was first) to join the NLRB directly from a labor union. In Griffin’s case, it’s the International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE), where he was general counsel. 

The IUOE is an especially autocratic union that has been criticized by union activists for imposing strict Internet censorship on union members who have the temerity to run against current union leadership. Griffin justified the gag rule as necessary to protect the “union’s sensitive and/or confidential internal workings.” Griffin even tried to impose fines on his own union workers for challenging the gag rule in court.

In 1998 testimony to a House committee, Griffin argued for more expansive NLRB powers to order fines and other remedies, for allowing the board to enforce its decisions without a court order and for allowing unions to organize at single locations. Most significantly, in that testimony Griffin was asked directly whether unions and employers both engage in illegal conduct. He said: “The vast majority of illegal conduct is committed by employers, and therefore the vast majority of charges are addressed to employer conduct.”

Congress needs to pass a joint resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act to send a message to Obama to stop ignoring the Constitution, bypassing the Constitution, to stop abusing his power and reverse his appointments.