The Republican "outrage" over the Richard Cordray appointment just keep on coming. But before we get to that, a walk down memory lane. Remember this?
That's Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC-10) being as
nasty as possible to then-acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Elizabeth Warren. He's
demanding a repeat performance with Cordray. From his as-nasty-as-you-would-expect
letter to Cordray:
President Obama’s appointment of you as director of the agency—in apparent contravention of constitutional requirements for a recess appointment—now gives you the enormous authority to invalidate any consumer financial product in the United States In addition, your unprecedented recess appointment provides the CFPB with new powers to broadly regulate consumer financial products and services with minimal oversight. As you begin your tenure as the director of the CFPB, the subcommittee is deeply interested in how you will implement and enforce the unparalleled powers of your new office.
You have to read the original to see his very outraged footnotes. Rep. McHenry is in full tantrum mode, prepared to set a whole new level of unprofessional, un-congressional behavior in the next hearing.
Not wanting to be left out, Mitt Romney piles on, too. But he saves his venom for President Obama.
"Instead of working with Congress to fix the flaws in this new bureaucracy, the president is declaring that he 'refuses to take no for an answer' and circumventing Congress to appoint a new administrator," Romney said in a statement. "This action represents Chicago-style politics at its worst and is precisely what then-Senator Obama claimed would be 'the wrong thing to do.' Sadly, instead of focusing on economic growth, he is once again focusing on creating more regulation, more government, and more Washington gridlock."
How circumventing months of GOP obstruction is creating more Washington gridlock is not entirely clear. But the last thing Republican presidential candidates need is logic, so there you go.
One Republican, however, finds the appointment just peachy. Three guesses who, and it'll only take one.
Senator Scott Brown—who’s facing a stiff populist challenge from Elizabeth Warren, the creator of the agency — has now come out in support of the move. His statement, sent over by his office:
“I support President Obama’s appointment today of Richard Cordray to head the CFPB. I believe he is the right person to lead the agency and help protect consumers from fraud and scams. While I would have strongly preferred that it go through the normal confirmation process, unfortunately the system is completely broken. If we’re going to make progress as a nation, both parties in Washington need to work together to end the procedural gridlock and hyper-partisanship.”
If you need any evidence to demonstrate what a baldly political sham the Republican fight against Cordray—against all of Obama's nominees—is, it's this defection by Brown. Because it's not really a defection; his leadership is absolutely allowing it, because they want to keep that seat. Pretending like he, too, cares about working families is his only hope.
2:34 PM PT: Here's a funny twist to this, again from Sargent:
Think Crossroads will decide to pull their support from Brown? Yeah, right.
