Recess appointments set bad, even scary, precedents

One might think that at a time when President Bush's reach for power was being questioned on constitutional grounds, that he would step carefully to avoid appearing grabby or spoiled or petulant. One would be wrong.
Presidents have the constitutional authority to bypass the Senate confirmation process on bureaucrats big and small by making recess appointments. The practice dates back to the nation's early days, when distances were vast, travel slow and congressional sessions brief.
Most presidents have used or even misused the power, to one extent or another. In recent decades, presidents have used it not for the practical reasons for which it was established, but as a political maneuver to by-pass the Senate when a nomination became problematic.
One might also think that at a time when President Bush is still smarting from the effects of overly enthusiastic cronyism (do the words, "You're doing a heckuva job, Brownie" ring a bell?), the president would be especially careful not to use a recess appointment to put an unqualified hack in an important position. One would be wrong.
And one would think that if the president were going to make recess appointments last week, he would do so only in cases where either the will of the people was clearly being circumvented by a partisan Senate or where the Senate had been obviously derelict in its duty to give the president's nominees consideration. And, again, one would be wrong.
President Bush last week made 17 recess appointments to posts in his administration, some of relatively little significance.
Who got what
But there was a prominent crony, Ellen Sauerbrey, a long-active conservative Republican who once ran for Maryland governor. She was put in charge of the State Department's Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration. That makes her the international equivalent of Michael Brown, the former horse association director who rose to the position of director of FEMA, a post he unfortunately and famously held when Hurricane Katrina struck land.
Sauerbrey has no better qualifications to oversee an agency with a $700 million budget than Brown had. The only difference will be that if her agency fails to respond properly to a disaster it will be foreigners, not Americans, who will pay the consequences. That's small consolation.
There was also Julie Myers, who despite a lack of age and experience, was named to head the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement -- at a time when border security is an obvious issue.
Three members of the Federal Election Commission got recess appointments, including Hans von Spakovsky, who would have faced questioning over his support for a requirement that Georgia voters produce government-issued identification before voting. And Bush only nominated those three in December, shortly before the Senate left town for the Christmas break. The Senate may have dragged its heals on other appointments, but there wasn't time to begin vetting those nominees.
At a time of war, the second in command at the Defense Department, Deputy Secretary Gordon England, now sits by virtue of a recess appointment.
Troublesome pattern
The pattern suggests that President Bush doesn't take the Senate's role to advise and consent seriously or he resents what he sees as an intrusion on his powers or he simply doesn't think he should have to bother with the inconvenience of the Senate confirmation process if he can avoid it.
That's dangerous ground. We issued this caution before: Parties in power should not act as if they are going to be in power forever. A President Bush shouldn't set a precedent on which a President Clinton might build. And a second President Bush shouldn't compound the error, lest a second President Clinton might take the abuse further.