# Federal 'czars' and Art 1 Sec 9 of the constitution **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 10, 2011, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/federal-czars-and-art-1-sec-9-of-the-constitution/605765 "2011-12-10T21:07:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2011, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/federal-czars-and-art-1-sec-9-of-the-constitution/605765/21 "2011-12-12T17:44:59Z")
> [@IntelliQ](#): > > For example: > > Van Jones - “Green Jobs Czar”: Admitted Communist, petitioned with [911Truth.org](http://911Truth.org) a nutty group who believes Bush allowed 9/11 to happen on purpose, called Republican citizens “assholes” during speeches, involved with the radical marxist group “STORM”, helped organize a protest in defense of cop-killer (and “former” Black Panther) Mumia Abu-Jamal, …the list could go on. But he’s gone now after much public outcry, but Obama still gave him his props after he resigned. > Tarp Czar: Allison, Herb - CEO of Fannie Mae > > Car and Mfg Czar: Ron Bloom who said that “The free market is nonsense” and “We kind of agree with Mao, that political power comes largely from the barrel of a gun.” > > Terrorism Czar: John Brennan who opposed U.S. military actions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. > > I don’t remember the official title of Obama’s jobs adviser but if Im not mistaken he is/was the head of GE which made billions in profits last year and used a legal loophole to avoid paying taxes. No matter how you slice this one, the current administrations lips do not gel with 3 year long and running campaign rhetoric about closing loopholes and “paying fair shares”. Good point. “Czar” is being used as a term of derision, and the comparison is not an inappropriate one, despite what many on this board want to believe. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2011, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/federal-czars-and-art-1-sec-9-of-the-constitution/605765/22 "2011-12-12T17:57:28Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > Except of course, most of them are confirmed by the Senate. The drug czar, for example, is head of the National Council of Drug Enforcement policy, a position created by legislation and requiring confirmation. Its basically just a nickname for highlevel gov’t employees whose actual titles are too unwiedly for every day use. The Tarp Czar is the ssistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Stability of the United States, a position that requires Senate Confirmation. Etc etc. > > Some don’t require confirmation, but those are 1) in the minority and 2) usually purely advisory positions under the WH. I’m pretty sure they’re not in the minority. Only a very small number of top officials within the Executive Office of the President (that includes all the “czars”) require Senate confirmation. Some current examples of czars that don’t require confirmation are: - AIDS Czar (Director of the Office of National AIDS policy; ranked as a second-level advisor in the EOP.) - Bioethics Czar (Chairman of the President’s Council on Bioethics) - Faith Czar, who ran President Bush’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives - Urban Czar (Director of Office of Urban Affairs Policy; a senior advisor within the EOP) And so on and so forth. There are literally hundreds of these, many of which only existed for a year or two. Many of them are existing cabinet officials who are charged with extra advisory duties by the president. But most are _ad-hoc_ offices created within the EOP under the president’s discretionary power to run his own office with minimal interference. The EOP’s purpose is to formulate policy and advise the president, but the operative functions of the executive branch all fall under the cabinet departments and their Senate-approved secretaries, under-secretaries, and deputy and assistant secretaries. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2011, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/federal-czars-and-art-1-sec-9-of-the-constitution/605765/23 "2011-12-12T18:43:43Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **DrFidelius** : > And I am certain that no one in northern India paid tribute to Babe Ruth, despite his being named the “Sultan of Swat.” (I know it’s in Pakistan now, but at the time it was an Indian state.) Who? Did you mean George Ruth? ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2011, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/federal-czars-and-art-1-sec-9-of-the-constitution/605765/24 "2011-12-12T19:09:19Z")
> [@IntelliQ](#): > > The reason for the nickname is that advisers (during any presidency) are not elected, do not require senate confirmation, yet have great influence and virtually no accountability. > > Adding balance to the tea party invective above, I submit the current administration comes under extra criticism for … > > The list is goes on like this _sigh_, so anyone insinuating (quite divisively for no reason) that it’s a Tea Party propoganda term would do well to see the big picture and try to understand why the term czar is used frequently. And the next guy whoever he is, if his advisors are socialists, marxists, abusers of capitalism, or any combination of them, you can bet the terms to describe them will not be kind. With or without a Tea Party. It’s one thing to criticize the other party’s appointments on their merits; after all, we can’t all be like Brownie and do a heckuva job, but… The OP and the question is - does appointing a “czar” violate the constitutional prohibition on noble titles? Who honestly believes it does and says so publicly? Who dishonestly believes/claims it does, and why would they say so if they don’t really believe? So far, I see: No Nobody O’Donell for one, probably to come up with any lame excuse to criticize the administration. To quote a great man about pigs and lipstick, “enough with the phony outrage.” ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2011, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/federal-czars-and-art-1-sec-9-of-the-constitution/605765/25 "2011-12-12T23:37:56Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Who? Did you mean George Ruth? What’s wrong with “Babe Ruth?” (I’ve never had much respect for the rhetorical device of pseudo-naivete, but, on the off-chance you really don’t know, [here is a good place to learn more.](http://www.baberuth.com)) ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2011, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/federal-czars-and-art-1-sec-9-of-the-constitution/605765/26 "2011-12-13T00:30:24Z")
To the OP: I first heard your argument from [Craig Anthony Miller](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsr0iGUDAPw), the guy who confronted Arlen Specter at a town hall meeting about health care. Do you really think that the use of the word ‘czar’ by the media violates the constitution? If the czars had the same powers, but were referred to by reporters as, I dunno, “Boss Man”, would the constitution be intact? (And I’m sure you and Mr. Miller expressed the same objections when George H. W. Bush appointed William Bennett ‘drug czar’?) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2011, 6:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/federal-czars-and-art-1-sec-9-of-the-constitution/605765/27 "2011-12-13T06:33:15Z")
> [@](#): > > What’s wrong with “Babe Ruth?” It was an attempt at a joke. Since Ruth came up as an example of someone with an unofficial title, I thought I’d play on “Babe” being an unofficial name. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2011, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/federal-czars-and-art-1-sec-9-of-the-constitution/605765/28 "2011-12-13T08:14:43Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > It was an attempt at a joke. Since Ruth came up as an example of someone with an unofficial title, I thought I’d play on “Babe” being an unofficial name. Oops! My apologies. I misread the tone of the post as being snarky and belligerent. My dumb. Owe ya a beer! ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2011, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/federal-czars-and-art-1-sec-9-of-the-constitution/605765/29 "2011-12-13T14:37:13Z")
That’s George _Herman_ Ruth, _Jr._, to you. To further complicate this issue, I note that many media sources refer to Ruth as “#1 all-time,” but his _official_ number was 3. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2011, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/federal-czars-and-art-1-sec-9-of-the-constitution/605765/30 "2011-12-13T14:42:49Z")
> [@IntelliQ](#): > > Terrorism Czar: John Brennan who opposed U.S. military actions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. I’d like to see a cite for that. Just the part about Afghanistan. Plenty of people opposed the war in Iraq, including our current elected president, so I don’t see that as particularly controversial. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2011, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/federal-czars-and-art-1-sec-9-of-the-constitution/605765/31 "2011-12-13T14:59:02Z")
> [@IntelliQ](#): > > Adding balance to the tea party invective above, I submit the current administration comes under extra criticism for the choice of “czars”/ advisers because of their backgrounds and behaviors which many Americans find distasteful. But that wasn’t the complaint. The complaint was **only** about the title “Czar” and whether it was legal to give such a title. > [@](#): > > Surely advisers of previous administrations have come under fire for one reason or another (before there was a Tea Party to blame), but let’s stick to the here and now, merely as a counterweight to the notion that using critical labels for current advisers is “silly”. Um maybe you should re-read. The silliness relates to the Tea Partier complaining about Obama admin. czars, while staying mum about Bush admin. czars. I call that a double standard, or dishonesty. And taking a nickname like “Czar” as literal bestowment of a title of nobility which was the official Tea Party complaint - well how else do you call that besides silly? Again, if they want to criticze the appointment of certain indiviuals based on their past records, or that general advisors which are nicknamed Czars have too much influence and too little oversight - then they should’ve made that argument. They didn’t. > [@](#): > > The list is goes on like this _sigh_, so anyone insinuating (quite divisively for no reason) that it’s a Tea Party propoganda term would do well to see the big picture and try to understand why the term czar is used frequently. And the next guy whoever he is, if his advisors are socialists, marxists, abusers of capitalism, or any combination of them, you can bet the terms to describe them will not be kind. With or without a Tea Party. Um, the nickname Czar was not created by Tea Partiers (because it was used by Bush before); the problem is that criticsm of a nickname is silly, esp. if other critiscm would be more valid; and the next admin.s advisors will likely be called czars again unless they are called in a different procedure, given different powers etc. The terms to describe individual person depends on what those persons did, and thus varies. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2011, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/federal-czars-and-art-1-sec-9-of-the-constitution/605765/32 "2011-12-13T15:03:42Z")
> [@IntelliQ](#): > > Terrorism Czar: John Brennan who opposed U.S. military actions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Given that all those “actions” or rather wars stirred up resentment against the US in the Arab world, and that many people saw terrorist acts against US soldiers as only method to get foreign occupiers off their territory, this sounds rather sensible. Do you think a Terrorism czar, or expert, who’s gung-ho on shooting everybody suspected terrorist and torturing the rest will make better progress than one who faces reality and thinks about consequences, who knows that you don’t use soldiers to fight terrorists? ---
**Author:** ![IntelliQ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e99b99/32.png) [@IntelliQ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IntelliQ)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2011, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/federal-czars-and-art-1-sec-9-of-the-constitution/605765/33 "2011-12-13T15:21:16Z")
> [@constanze](#): > > But that wasn’t the complaint. The complaint was **only** about the title “Czar” and whether it was legal to give such a title. Yes. You replied with an irrelevant partisan opinion. I therefore stepped in and added balance. > [@constanze](#): > > Um maybe you should re-read. The silliness relates to the Tea Partier complaining about Obama admin. czars, while staying mum about Bush admin. czars. I call that a double standard, or dishonesty. That doesnt address the original complaint either. Moving along… ---
**Author:** ![IntelliQ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e99b99/32.png) [@IntelliQ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IntelliQ)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2011, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/federal-czars-and-art-1-sec-9-of-the-constitution/605765/34 "2011-12-13T15:31:29Z")
Edit: substitute “complaint”, with “question”. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2011, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/federal-czars-and-art-1-sec-9-of-the-constitution/605765/35 "2011-12-13T15:33:39Z")
> [@IntelliQ](#): > > The reason for the nickname is that advisers (during any presidency) are not elected, do not require senate confirmation, yet have great influence and virtually no accountability. > > Adding balance to the tea party invective above, I submit the current administration comes under extra criticism for the choice of “czars”/ advisers because of their backgrounds and behaviors which many Americans find distasteful. Surely advisers of previous administrations have come under fire for one reason or another (before there was a Tea Party to blame), but let’s stick to the here and now, merely as a counterweight to the notion that using critical labels for current advisers is “silly”. > > For example: > > Van Jones - “Green Jobs Czar”: Admitted Communist, petitioned with [911Truth.org](http://911Truth.org) a nutty group who believes Bush allowed 9/11 to happen on purpose, called Republican citizens “assholes” during speeches, involved with the radical marxist group “STORM”, helped organize a protest in defense of cop-killer (and “former” Black Panther) Mumia Abu-Jamal, …the list could go on. But he’s gone now after much public outcry, but Obama still gave him his props after he resigned. > Tarp Czar: Allison, Herb - CEO of Fannie Mae > > Car and Mfg Czar: Ron Bloom who said that “The free market is nonsense” and “We kind of agree with Mao, that political power comes largely from the barrel of a gun.” > > Terrorism Czar: John Brennan who opposed U.S. military actions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. > > I don’t remember the official title of Obama’s jobs adviser but if Im not mistaken he is/was the head of GE which made billions in profits last year and used a legal loophole to avoid paying taxes. No matter how you slice this one, the current administrations lips do not gel with 3 year long and running campaign rhetoric about closing loopholes and “paying fair shares”. > > The list is goes on like this _sigh_, so anyone insinuating (quite divisively for no reason) that it’s a Tea Party propoganda term would do well to see the big picture and try to understand why the term czar is used frequently. And the next guy whoever he is, if his advisors are socialists, marxists, abusers of capitalism, or any combination of them, you can bet the terms to describe them will not be kind. With or without a Tea Party. > [@constanze](#): > > Given that all those “actions” or rather wars stirred up resentment against the US in the Arab world, and that many people saw terrorist acts against US soldiers as only method to get foreign occupiers off their territory, this sounds rather sensible. > > Do you think a Terrorism czar, or expert, who’s gung-ho on shooting everybody suspected terrorist and torturing the rest will make better progress than one who faces reality and thinks about consequences, who knows that you don’t use soldiers to fight terrorists? > [@IntelliQ](#): > > Yes. You replied with an irrelevant partisan opinion. I therefore stepped in and added balance. > > That doesnt address the original complaint either. > > Moving along… [Moderating] I don’t think we need to get into a partisan political discussion here regarding the merits of Obama’s appointments, from either side. Since the factual aspects of the OP have been answered - that the appointment of a so-called “czar” does not violate the Constitution in any way - I’m going to close this. Those who wish to discuss the political reasons for making this argument may take it up in a new thread in Great Debates. Colibri General Questions Moderator [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/federal-czars-and-art-1-sec-9-of-the-constitution/605765.md?page=1)