Resist Obama/Reid’s nomination power play

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) nomination power play under
the guise of a created emergency on the federal bench is both absurd
and dangerous.
 
The truth is that Reid is setting up a constitutional crisis over the
Easter congressional district work period allowing President Obama to
“recess”-appoint a bevy of judges and others without the advice and
consent of the Senate.
 
The Constitution does not require that the Senate approve the
president’s choices for the judiciary, and in fact, the Senate is
supposed to be anything but a rubber stamp.  These permanent
appointments to the federal bench are supposed to be thoroughly vetted,
and the Senate has a responsibility to only approve those who meet the
highest standards.
 
{mosads}One of the 17 bench appointees Reid is looking to jam through the Senate floor under the threat of an Obama constitutional jihad is Michael Fitzgerald, who is designated for the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. Fitzgerald is an active member of the Harvard-Radcliffe Gay and Lesbian Caucus, which has worked to bar military recruiters from Harvard as a protest of the Clinton administration’s “Don’t ask, don’t tell” compromise on homosexuals in the military.
 
Fitzgerald’s willingness to deny our nation’s military from access to the self-proclaimed “best and brightest” who attend Harvard speaks volumes about his priorities and overall suitability for the federal bench.
 
On a larger scale, Senate Republicans SHOULD refuse to provide Obama with a single new appointee to any position in his administration until the illegal appointments to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the National Labor Relations Board are rescinded and resubmitted to the Senate.
 
Unlike the current “federal judiciary crisis,” where Obama has not even nominated anyone to serve in more than half of the current federal bench openings, in January, Obama anointed three National Labor Relations Board members without consent of the Senate. Shockingly, these NLRB nominations had only been made a couple of weeks before the self-declared emergency, and before all their paperwork for consideration had been filed with the Senate.
 
At some point, the Constitution either matters or it doesn’t. 
 
Through his appointment actions, Obama has declared the Constitution invalid, and his Charley McCartney-like co-conspirator Reid is equally culpable in the shredding of our founding document. The only question that remains is whether Republicans will stand up for our nation’s laws, or will we continue down a path toward rule by executive fiat?
 
Today’s comments by Utah Sen. Mike Lee (R) show promise that our elected officials are waking up, but let’s hope that he is joined by others in Hart, Dirksen and Russell, or else very little else they do will matter.
 

Rick Manning is the communications director of Americans for Limited Government.