White House's recess appointment bypasses senator's hold
From GovExec:
The White House on Tuesday designated Jim Williams acting administrator of the General Services Administration, effective Aug. 30.
Williams, currently the commissioner of GSA's Federal Acquisition Service, was nominated to succeed Lurita A. Doan as GSA administrator on June 25, but the Senate has yet to confirm him. After a heated July 25 confirmation hearing in which Williams was grilled on his involvement in a controversial information technology contract, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, blocked the nomination, which cleared the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on July 30.
A recess appointment - what a surprise! Has that been done before?
Paging the majority leader to the courtesy phone, Mr. Bush on the line asking if you thought that a Repukelican standing on principal was somehow going to prevent me from appointing another toxic civil servant?
OK, impeachment proceedings NOW - no not Bush - just this GSA dude. Nancy may OK it Harry.
Does anyone here know how to play this game?
Posted by: wilson | August 19, 2008 at 19:40
i hought we were making sure preznit shithead couldn't do that anymore.
Posted by: pansypoo | August 19, 2008 at 20:05
Parsing the bureaucratese in that article (since I'm an ex-bureaucrat) ...
From the way the article puts it, there seems to be no need for Senate confirmation of a temporary appointment (i.e. to Acting Administrator of GSA). The article tells me the congressional Dems' blocking of real recess appointments (i.e. of nominees to permanent posts such as Administrator) is in force now, or the White House would have slipped this dude into the permanent post.
Though it's been a long while since I was in the belly of the bureaucracy, I seem to recall that appointments to senior Acting slots usually don't require Senate confirmation, since the Acting designation is usually a truly temporary measure ... to put someone in charge quickly after a death or sudden resignation.
(As usual, the WH is pushing the envelope here. Plus qu'il change ... )
Posted by: mark1147 | August 20, 2008 at 01:23
The article tells me the congressional Dems' blocking of real recess appointments (i.e. of nominees to permanent posts such as Administrator) is in force now,
from the blockquote above:
Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, blocked the nomination, which cleared the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on July 30.
Bipartisan blocking of real recess appointments.
Posted by: Rambuncle | August 20, 2008 at 11:45
GSA - no chance of a Bush cronie misuing this post for personal gain !
Posted by: MapleStreet | August 20, 2008 at 12:37