Obama’s imperial presidency

During the Bush presidency, the president was often accused by the left of acting unilaterally as an “imperial president.” It was charged that President Bush often ignored the will of the people and flouted the law with signing statements, acting more like a king than a president.

While the term has rarely been applied to President Obama, the current president’s actions have often been deserving of it. One of the most egregious examples of President Obama’s disregard for the rule of law and the Constitution was his decision to appoint three new members to the National Labor Relations Board and a head to the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau last week. Obama styled the appointments as recess appointments although neither the House nor the Senate was in recess.

Article II section 2 clause 3 of the Constitution gives the president the power to fill vacancies that occur while the Senate is in recess. These recess appointments escape the immediate need to be confirmed by the Senate, but expire at the end of the next session of Congress.

Article I section 5 clause 4 states that neither house of Congress can adjourn for more than three days without the consent of the other. This is done by passing a resolution in both the House and the Senate. In this case, there is no disagreement that Congress was not formally recessed since neither the House nor the Senate had passed a resolution to end the session.

President Obama’s claim is that since Congress was not conducting business, he met the constitutional requirement. In the New York Times, White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler said that “the Senate is functionally in recess,” even though neither house had passed a resolution to end the session as required by the Constitution. In fact, Congress acted on the president’s payroll tax bill only a few days before Christmas and had considered other legislation as well.

The recess appointments were a reaction to the failure of the Senate to confirm a number of Mr. Obama’s nominees including Richard Cordray, the nominee to lead the new consumer protection bureau. Republicans had filibustered Cordray’s nomination last month over opposition to the lack of oversight of the new agency. It is worth noting that President Bush declined to make recess appointments while Congress was in session even though Democrats had filibustered a large number of his nominees as well.

President Bush also took criticism for launching the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but he did so with congressional approval in both cases. In contrast, President Obama not only launched his Libyan war without consulting Congress, but he also claimed that the War Powers Act, which requires authorization from Congress when U.S. troops are in combat for more than 60 days, did not apply.

In the past, President Obama has also ignored Congress and the legislative process on other issues as well. A year ago the Atlanta Conservative Examiner detailed how two of President Obama’s agency heads bypassed Congress. The FCC enacted net neutrality rules as administrative law after a federal court ruled that the FCC did not have the authority to regulate the internet. At about the same time, the EPA began regulating carbon emissions in the same manner after Congress failed to pass a cap-and-trade law.

There have been other legislative power grabs by President Obama and his regulatory heads as well. In a well-known case, the National Labor Relations Board filed a complaint against Boeing because the aircraft manufacturer, which is unionized at its Washington State plants, planned to build a new factory in South Carolina, which is a right-to-work state. The complaint alleged that Boeing was illegally retaliating for strikes by workers in the Washington factories. There is no law preventing unionized companies from opening new locations in right-to-work states. The NLRB and the union withdrew the complaint last month after Boeing’s union workers approved a new contract.

In one case, the Obama administration’s disregard for the law played into the hands of its opponents. After the passage of the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, the Department of Health and Human Services began issuing waivers that allowed favored companies and unions to keep their current health care plans until 2014. According to The Hill, over 1,200 organizations received the waivers. The large numbers of groups requesting waivers allowed Republicans to claim that the health care law was expensive and unworkable.

The problem is the ACA did not authorize the government to grant waivers or deviations from the new health insurance requirements. According to the Daily Caller, the Department of Health and Human Services granted itself the waiver authority in an apparent violation of the law. The article cites Heritage Foundation health policy expert Edmund Haisimaier who noted, “I count twenty-one other sections of PPACA [Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act] in which Congress did grant HHS explicit, new waiver authority with respect to specific provisions. Thus, it is reasonable to presume that if Congress had intended the department to institute a waiver process as part of its implementation of this particular provision, Congress would have said so in the statute.”

Another recent revelation from the Obama White House is reminiscent of Marie Antoinette’s “let them eat cake” moment from the French Revolution. According to a new book, “The Obamas” by New York Times correspondent Jodi Kantor, during the height of the Great Recession in 2009, the Obamas threw a star studded Halloween party. The N.Y. Post reports that the party, put on by Johnny Depp and Tim Burton, coincided with the release of Burton’s film adaptation of “Alice in Wonderland.” In addition to Depp’s Mad Hatter, the party also featured George Lucas’s emissary, the original Chewbacca, mingling with guests. The party was apparently covered up by the White House amid concerns about how it would look amid a time of recession and high unemployment.

President Obama’s tenure has resulted in unprecedented expansion of the powers of the executive branch. His overreach should alarm liberals as well as conservatives because it is likely that his practices will be continued by future presidents of both parties. Americans have a right to expect better of a former professor of constitutional law.

Read this article on Examiner.com:

http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-atlanta/obama-s-imperial-presidency

Obamacare update

Wikimedia/ Agradman

The number of waivers issued by the Department of Health and Human Services for one-year waivers from requirements of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) exceeded 1,000 recently.  According to a report in The Hill, recent additions to the waiver list brought the total to 1,040 organizations that do not have to meet the minimum limit of $750,000 coverage.  Many of these organizations offer so-called “mini-med” policies that are inexpensive and offer low limits.

Without the waivers, many companies would likely have terminated their health insurance programs rather than meeting Obamacare’s requirements for expanded coverage.  The cost of converting mini-med policies to full health insurance plans would have been prohibitive.  As it is, the waivers are a stop-gap measure intended to last until 2014 when health care exchanges are scheduled to go into effect. 

A partial list of organizations that have been issued exemptions can be found on the HHS website.  Several states have been issued exemptions, but Georgia is not listed.  There are a number of unions listed among the exemptions, including the Atlanta Plumbers and Steam Fitters Fringe Benefit Fund, the Service Employees International Union, and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. 

Most large Georgia-based companies are absent from the list but many companies that Georgians are familiar with are receiving exemptions.  O’Reilly Auto Parts is a Missouri-based company with many stores around Georgia.  Tennessee-based Ruby Tuesday, a restaurant chain with many locations around Georgia is also on the list.  Cracker Barrel, Pepsico, and Dish Network are some of the other companies receiving exemptions that Georgians know well that have 2011 exemptions.  The exemptions are not listed by state and no address information is provided on the list.

In a second recent development, Judge Roger Vinson, who ruled Obamacare unconstitutional last January, issued a stay of his ruling.  The stay resolved questions about whether the implementation of Obamacare could continue while the federal government appealed to the Supreme Court. 

The judge criticized the Justice Department’s slow movement on the case:  “It was not expected that they would effectively ignore the order and declaratory judgment for two-and-a-half weeks, continue to implement the act and, only then, file a belated motion to ‘clarify.’”  He also encouraged the 11^th circuit to place the case on a fast track for review, saying that “The citizens of this country have an interest in having this case resolved as soon as practically possible.”  In all likelihood, the case, which was brought by 26 states, will ultimately be decided by the Supreme Court.  Georgia is also a party to the lawsuit.

It is important to get a speedy resolution to the case because of many parts of Obamacare are being implemented on a schedule.  The majority of the law will go into effect in 2014, but funding will automatically start this year, even if it is not appropriated by the Republican-majority House of Representatives.  Additionally, the law has already fundamentally changed the health insurance landscape by setting off a wave of insurance company mergers and acquisitions.  It also forced many insurers to stop selling child-only insurance policies because they are no longer profitable under the new law. 

http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-atlanta/obamacare-update-march-10-2011#ixzz1GD6dwieo">