Obama Challenges Republicans by Appointing Officials by Decree

President Barack Obama appointed four officials on Wednesday (Jan. 4) by presidential decree, despite warnings from Republicans in Congress, setting the stage for a spirited 10 month campaign to try to secure a second term as the head of the United States.

“When Congress refuses to act, and as a result hurts our economy and puts people at risk, I have an obligation as president to do what I can without them,” said Obama during a trip to Ohio (north), announcing the appointment of Richard Cordray to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Cordray is a Democrat who distinguished himself by pursuing banks for their abuses of loans during his previous position as Ohio’s attorney general.

The forced passage has led to exaggerated reactions from the Republicans, who have taken advantage of the blocking minority they have in the Senate to stop the appointment of Cordray since July 2011. They had already taken that route with the first candidate, Elizabeth Warren. They accused Obama of “trampling” the Constitution.

“I will not stand by while a minority in the Senate puts party ideology ahead of the people they were elected to serve. Not when so much is at stake. Not at this make-or-break moment for the middle class,” declared Obama.

A candidate for his own reelection, he continues in this vein, following a strategy honed over the summer: that of defender of a middle class hit hard by the crisis, standing in opposition to the Republicans who are accused of siding with the rich.

The White House then announced three other appointments by presidential decree to the Labor Relations Board, another agency criticized by Republicans. These initiatives are all guarantees given to his Democratic base by Obama, who had emerged victorious from a confrontation with Republicans in Congress in late December on the extension of tax breaks.

But for elected Republicans, Congress is not on vacation, the only time when recess appointments are possible. Obama’s opponents, in order to guard against such an outcome, have in fact maintained formal legislative activity during the holidays.

The likelihood of an appeal to justice will not prevent Cordray from assuming his post no matter what. However, in the absence of confirmation by the Senate, he will occupy the post only temporarily, until early 2013. The political cards will be reshuffled by the presidential and congressional elections of Nov. 6 2012.

Obama’s announcement caused outrage among Republicans. The minority leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, asserted that, “President Obama, in an unprecedented move, arrogantly circumvented the American people,” while the Republican chairman of the House, John Boehner, denounced an “extraordinary abuse of power.”

The Consumer Protection Financial Bureau was created by a financial regulation act adopted in July 2010 to prevent the abuses that contributed to the crisis of 2008. But the agency could not meet all of its mandates without a director. The American Bankers Association echoed those criticisms, saying that “the controversial nature of today’s recess appointment reinforces the banking industry’s concerns about the Bureau’s structure and lack of accountability.”

“It puts the Bureau’s future actions in constitutional jeopardy,” denounced the bank lobby.

This episode came a day after the launch of the Republican primary process in Iowa (center), where the candidate Mitt Romney won by a nose. Speaking in the debate on the nomination of Cordray, Romney has also denounced the decision as “[representing] Chicago-style politics at its worst,” the city where Obama was an elected official.

“Mitt Romney today stood with predatory lenders and Republicans in Congress over the middle class,” responded the spokesman of the Obama campaign, Ben LaBolt.