Bush Uses Recess to Make More Controversial Appointments
The Myers appointment is perhaps the most egregious of the crop, evidenced by opposition from right and left and by her connections that reek of both nepotism and croynism. In September, we reported that Myers (36, wife of DHS Chief Chertoff’s chief of staff and a niece of former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Richard B. Myers) does not meet the Congressional (statutory) requirements for this job. Nevertheless, the Committee voted to move her nomination to the floor in October, on a straight party vote. The Palm Beach Post notes:
Ms. Myers will oversee about 20,000 federal employees and manage a $4 billion budget in her new role but has no significant experience in law enforcement or management. ICE, the second-largest law-enforcement agency in the federal government, is responsible for preventing terrorists, drug smugglers and arms dealers from getting into the country, that's all.
The GovExec reports: "Myers previously worked in the departments of Treasury, Commerce and Justice, and most recently served as a special assistant to Bush."
What Is A Recess Appointment
These recess appointments extend through the life of the current congressional session: til January 2007. A recess appointment occurs when a President bypasses Senate "advice and consent" by making an appointment during Congressional recess. Per Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution, the Senate has the authority to provide "advice and consent" to the President on appointments:
... [The President] shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law...
However, in anticipation of the need to appoint someone when Congress was not in session -- in other words, in an emergency -- the founding fathers added:
The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.
By making these appointment when the Senate was on a pro forma recess after convening on 3 January, the President has taken the decision to circumvent the Senate's constitutional "advise and consent" oversight directive to a new level. White House spokesman Erin Healy: "These are critical positions that can no longer go unoccupied." However, most nominations have been open for months, and although some might have been held up for petty or political reasons, many nominees had questionable resumes.
Others With A One-Year Job
Henke was an attorney at the Justice Department, where she achieved notoriety by squashing a press release that included statistics about the racial mix of people in traffic stops. From The Weekly Standard:
"The planned announcement noted that the rate at which whites, blacks and Hispanics were stopped was 'about the same,' and that finding was left intact by Ms. Henke's office, according to a copy of the draft obtained by The New York Times.
"But the references in the draft to higher rates of searches and use of force for blacks and Hispanics were crossed out by hand, with a notation in the margin that read, 'Do we need this?' A note affixed to the edited draft, which the officials said was written by Ms. Henke, read 'Make the changes,' and it was signed 'Tracy.' That led to a fierce dispute after Mr. Greenfeld refused to delete the references, officials said."
"Greenfeld refused [to make the changes] and the press release was withdrawn. The study itself, however, was released unchanged and can be viewed in its entirety on the BJS website (Contacts between Police and the Public: Findings from the 2002 National Survey, April 2005, (at www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/cpp02.pdf). Shortly thereafter, Greenfeld was brought in for questioning by the third highest ranking official in the Justice Department and then called to the White House and asked to resign."
Another controversial appointment was the Assistant Secretary of State for Population, a department with a $700 million annual budget and that is responsible for "America's response to refugee crises all over the world." In October 2005, Bush picked Ellen Sauerbrey, "right-wing social conservative with little background in international affairs, to replace Arthur ("Gene") Dewey, a career foreign policy official." The nominee was meet with opposition from "newspapers all over the country -- including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the San Antonio Express-News, the Miami Herald and the Charlton Gazette ." Her lack of experience enabled Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) to "[convince] the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to put off a vote on her nomination until after the winter break."
"If she is confirmed by the Senate, think of her as the Michael D. Brown of the refugee world," opined the Washington Post. Her lack of qualifications are so glaring that two of the last three people to hold the position -- Democrat Phyllis E. Oakley and Republican Julia Taft, both of whom served under Clinton -- signed a letter to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee opposing her confirmation...
Sauerbrey lost two races for the Maryland governorship and went on to become a TV talk show host and Maryland chairman of Bush's 2000 presidential campaign. She had no international experience until Bush appointed her U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women. There, she was notorious for her active opposition to programs that expand women's access to contraception. She infuriated representatives of other countries by working to scuttle international agreements that codify women's right to reproductive healthcare. In March, she was loudly booed by delegates at a U.N. women's conference in New York -- a rare occurrence -- for her comments endorsing abstinence education as the best way to fight HIV...
With Sauerbrey, [Jodi Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Health and Gender Equity] says, "You have a person in there who A) doesn't have any experience dealing with refugee movements, refugee resettlement, refugee crises, and B) has an ideological agenda against the single most important health intervention for refugee women."
Bush also made three appointments to the Federal Election Commission: Justice Department employee and former Fulton County GA Republican chairman Hans von Spakovsky and Democrat lawyers Robert D. Lenhard and Steven T. Walther.
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Bush appointed Patent Lawyers to represent the little guy against corperation that violate patents. Do you know any of the Patent lawyers? Eric Thaxton