This is one of very few things on which I would agree with Bush’s point. Not the signing statement bullshit. He should have vetoed the bill if he didn’t like it.
But here’s the point: FEMA director is an “advice and consent of the Senate” political appointment. The pres nominates, the senate approves or not. The Senate is in a way abrogating its oversight responsibility by defining who the president can even get in front of the nomination committee.
The president should have a right to nominate any one he wants to a post. Congress already has a check on who actually gets the job. We all know people who are very capable of doing some job even though their paper trail doesn’t necessarily indicate it. Michael Brown isn’t among them of course. But others may be, and may be excluded from positions from which they might excel because of rules like this.
If the person isn’t good enough to do the job, the Senate shouldn’t consent to the nomination.
What I want to know is, where’s this “unitary executive branch” that Bush keeps referring to in his signing statements? It isn’t mentioned in the Constitution, so I think it must be some other executive branch they made up. After all, they’re into creating their own reality over there…
You guys are not using the Republican definition of “qualified.”
In Repspeak, that means, willing to do what you are told, and say what you are told in any conceivable situation, and never ever say anything that could possibly indicate that you noticed that the president is an idiot.
Yes, it is called a recess appointment. It expires automatically at the end of the following session of Congress, unless the appointee is nominated and confirmed in the meantime. Here is a pretty useful description.
The unitary executive theory basically says that the President has power over executive agencies, and not Congress. It’s derived from the “Vesting Clause” of Article II…“The Executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America”.
Oh, I’m aware of the theory alright. But whether that theory about THE Executive Branch true or false, there is no “unitary executive branch”; there is just the same old Executive Branch named as such in the Constitution, that we’ve had for the past 217 years. Maybe that Executive Branch has the property of unitariness, or maybe it doesn’t.
But there is no “unitary executive branch” named in the Constitution or laws of the United States, hence from a narrow, legalistic standpoint, Bush’s signing statements referring to that entity are meaningless.
Which kind of begs the question: What was the Senate thinking when they consented to the nomination of “Brownie”? And if the answer is, “They weren’t,” then this bill doesn’t really seem like a huge problem to me.
The Senate has better things to do than debating whether or not unqualified dipshits should run agencies. Really, my HR department would’ve screened out Brownie’s resume for a corporate Director level job in “business continuity.” Why waste the Senate’s time? Not to mention the potential politics involved in not confirming or confirming a nomination.
Honestly, are you seriously contending that the Republican-controlled Senate would do anything besides rubber stamp any of W’s appointments? Sure, candidates have to go through confirmations, but given that any reasonable objection will be characterized as obstructionist and confrontational, and any Congress in the President’s pocket will do nothing to rock the boat and anger their Fearless Leader, this type of legislation is wholly appropriate to impose some standards.
I actually see this as a favor to Bush, telling him to appoint someone qualified so it doesn’t become a fight in the Senate. What Senator wants to be stuck between going against the president and his opponent in the next election running ads about how he voted for another dipshit like Brown?
But I don’t think Bush actually cares about Congress any more - not if it interferes with his power grab.