Let us pause for a moment of silence and give thanks for the wise beneficence of our exalted El Presidente, Obama the First.
He is a man on a mission. He came to Washington to get things done. And he is too big a man, too great a visionary, to allow himself to be constrained by the laws that restricted the powers of former presidents.
El Presidente's latest assertions of executive power, his recess appointments made while the Senate was not in recess, were bold and creative end-runs around the dilly-dallying of Congress.
“We can’t wait,” Obama said recently when he appointed Richard Cordray as director of the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). He also made three new appointments to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), after giving the Senate less than a month to consider two of the three nominations.
In former times, our less illustrious presidents allowed the Constitution to impede their progress towards authoritarian rule. They respected that pesky clause in the Constitution concerning the "Advice and Consent" powers of the Senate in regard to executive branch appointments.
But not El Presidente! He is a man of action! When the Senate wanted to slow down the appointment process and legislate some limits to the regulatory powers of the new CFPB, our Dear Leader unilaterally declared the Senate to be in recess, and then proceeded to make a recess appointment.
Never before in our history has a president taken it upon himself to decide when the Senate was in recess. The senators used to do that for themselves. The wimps.
But with Obama the First in the White House, we don't have to worry about long, boring congressional debates, or political compromise. I know I'll sleep better tonight knowing that he holds the reins of power.
El Presidente has compiled an impressive resume of extra-Constitutional actions, some of which are listed below, courtesy of Heritage.com.
In a recent article at Heritage.com, Lachlan Markay detailed some of the Great One's executive excesses:
"The Democrat-controlled Senate rejected his cap-and-trade plan, so Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency classified carbon dioxide, the compound that sustains vegetative life, as a pollutant so that it could regulate it under the Clean Air Act.
"After Congress defeated his stealth-amnesty immigration proposal, the DREAM Act, the Department of Homeland Security instructed Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials to “adopt enforcement parameters that bring about the same ends as the DREAM Act,” as Heritage’s Mike Brownfield explained.
"When the woefully misnamed Employee Free Choice Act–explicitly designed to bolster labor unions’ dwindling membership rolls–was defeated by Congress, the NLRB announced a rule that would implement “snap elections” for union representation, limiting employers’ abilities to make their case to workers and virtually guaranteeing a higher rate of unionization at the expense of workplace democracy.
"After an innovation-killing Internet regulation proposal failed to make it through Congress, the Federal Communications Commission announced — on Christmas Eve, no less — that it would regulate the Web anyway, despite even a federal court’s ruling that it had no authority to do so.
"In its push for national education standards, the Education Department decided to tie waivers for the No Child Left Behind law to requirements that states adopt those standards, shutting Congress out of the effort.
"Rather than push Congress to repeal federal laws against marijuana use, the Department of Justice (DOJ) simply decided it would no longer enforce those laws.
"DOJ made a similar move with respect to the Defense of Marriage Act: rather than seeking legislative recourse, DOJ announced it would stop enforcing the law."
