On January 4th, President Obama chose to exercise unprecedented power by making four federal appointments when the Senate was not in recess and had not given its consent. No other president had ever taken this kind of action because each of them understood that this unilateral power did not belong to the executive branch of the federal government. This president, on the other hand, decided to ignore nearly 100 years of Senate procedure and the Constitution itself.
This action robbed the American people, through their duly elected representatives in the Senate, of the power to advise the President on nominees for positions of authority in the government, and to ultimately either consent or, when so chosen, refuse to consent to such nominees. No citizen should underestimate the dangerous precedent that President Obama's appointments will set if they are allowed to stand.
The Constitution is not a list of suggestions. It is the founding document of the American government, and it describes the specific powers of our government and of its branches.
Specifically, the Constitution gives each branch checks and balances against the others, so that certain powers are shared and no one branch can establish authoritarian rule. The Founding Fathers wisely recognized that the surest road to tyranny was power without limits. This President insists on ignoring limits to his authority, and I have an obligation to defend the Senate and the Constitution.
Whenever this issue is raised for public debate, President Obama and his allies ignore any discussion of the Constitution and instead try to label my opposition as playing politics. There is no truth whatsoever behind those accusations. I will oppose any future Republican president who tries to commit the same type of overreach. No president, regardless of party, should be able to bypass the restrictions of the Constitution. Ours is not, and will never be, a government of one.
The President has also complained Congress has been causing unnecessary delays. What he does not seem to realize is that presidents have always been frustrated when Congress has offered resistance to the desires of the chief executive. Indeed, our government is designed to create delays and resistance to the overreach of the Executive. This inconvenient fact does not and cannot justify a breach of the Constitution on the part of the President. The minute we allow that to change, our course will be set down a very dangerous path.
Before January 4th, I routinely cooperated with the White House regarding federal nominees, often when I had significant political or philosophical differences with them. The entire Senate, in fact, has been more than cooperative, confirming more than 95% of this administration's nominees. I will no longer provide such cooperation, and I urge my Senate colleagues to join me in resisting further nominations until the President rescinds his unconstitutional appointments.
On February 17th, Majority Leader Reid responded to the growing resistance by taking President Obama's actions and legal arguments to their logical conclusion and suggested the President should appoint all of his non-judicial nominees as "recess" appointments regardless of any Senate action. If it is carried out, this will set a dangerous precedent that will last long beyond this Administration or any partisan gains for the Democrats.
It is time for Americans to hold their leaders responsible and ensure that no one, not even President Obama, is above the law. The Constitution must come first.
