A Sign Obama’s Recess Appointment Puts Republicans in a Spot
Like some other analysts, I have gotten the distinct impression that President Barack Obama would just loooooove the Republicans to make a big fuss over his decision to install Richard Cordray as head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Here is a significant sign:
Here’s a pretty clear sign of which way the politics are moving in the fight over Obama’s decision to employ a recess appointment to install Richard Cordray as head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Senator Scott Brown — who’s facing a stiff populist challenge from Elizabeth Warren, the creator of the agency — has now come out in support of the move. His statement, sent over by his office:
“I support President Obama’s appointment today of Richard Cordray to head the CFPB. I believe he is the right person to lead the agency and help protect consumers from fraud and scams. While I would have strongly preferred that it go through the normal confirmation process, unfortunately the system is completely broken. If we’re going to make progress as a nation, both parties in Washington need to work together to end the procedural gridlock and hyper-partisanship.”
Other Senate and House Republicans have denounced Obama’s recess appointment of Cordray as an act of tyranny and worse. Scott Brown’s Massachusetts colleague, Mitt Romney, just released a statement calling the move “Chicago style politics at its worst.”
Yet Scott Brown is now breaking decisively with his fellow Republicans, defending the recess appointment as necessary to break through partisan gridlock in order to “protect consumers from fraud and scams.”
Brown, of course, is being challenged by a candidate who may be more identified with protecting consumers against Wall Street than anyone else on the national stage right now.
Listening to Obama on the stump, it’s clear he is setting up an issue.
And I do suspect Republicans will eat the baited hook.
3 Responses to “A Sign Obama’s Recess Appointment Puts Republicans in a Spot”
Scott Brown is a special case, as having to win as a Republican in Massachusetts, he has to come across as a moderate. As the recess appointment of Cordray and three members of the NLRB points out, Republican unwillingness to vet Obama’s selections for various federal agencies makes it difficult for these agencies to function. Of course, they’d just as soon abolish the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the NLRB.
“Scott Brown is a special case, as having to win as a Republican in Massachusetts, he has to come across as a moderate.”
This strikes me as an indication of just how bad things have become in Washington. The act of not throwing a temper tantrum and blocking any nomination on sheer partisan grounds makes you not necessarily a moderate, but rather one playing the role of a moderate in order to win votes.
That said, I think what Obama needs to do is not count on someone like Brown playing moderate on this one issue, but to use this opportunity to hammer home the point that the Republicans who are blocking this and other nominees are the same people who demanded an “up or down vote” for Bush’s nominees, and even threatened to eliminate the filibuster in order to speed up the confirmation process.
Of course Scott Brown is just playing a chess game. Given his opponent, I’d be thrilled if he lost.