Almost six months after nominating Richard Cordray, Pres. Barack Obama plans to bypass a Senate vote and use a recess appointment to install the former Ohio Attorney General as head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
The move is meant to sidestep the regulatory wrangling that’s been going on for months. In December, Senate Republicans blocked the Cordray appointment. Their contention: The power of the CFPB should not rest in the hands of a single director.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, for one, considered the appointment a slap in the face. A press release posted today to the Kentucky senator’s web site was entitled, “Arrogantly Circumventing the American People with an Unprecedented ‘Recess Appointment’ of an Unaccountable Czar.”
McConnell pointed out that the Senate is not officially in recess, and the appointment could lead to further discord. “This recess appointment represents a sharp departure from a long-standing precedent that has limited the President to recess appointments only when the Senate is in a recess of 10 days or longer,” according to the statement. “Breaking from this precedent lands this appointee in uncertain legal territory, threatens the confirmation process and fundamentally endangers the Congress’s role in providing a check on the excesses of the executive branch.”
