A defiant President Obama brazenly bypassed Senate Republicans and installed his nominee as “America’s consumer watchdog” in a try-and- stop-me move that is certain to trigger new showdowns with Congress.
In a campaign-style speech in the most Democratic congressional district of the battleground state of Ohio, Obama defended his recess appointment of Richard Cordray.
An outraged House Speaker John Boehner denounced the move as “an unprecedented power grab,” and said it would be fought in court.
GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney called it “Chicago-style politics at its worst.”
But Obama further infuriated Republicans by appointing three members of the National Labor Relations Board.
Senate Republicans had blocked those appointments, as well as Cordray’s, and all 47 GOP legislators had warned Obama in a letter that it would be a dangerous precedent to bypass them.
Past presidents have gotten around stalled confirmations of their nominees by naming a nominee to a job when the Senate is on a lengthy recess. But Obama squeezed in his appointments during a break between rapid Senate sessions this week.
He said Republicans blocked Cordray’s nomination to head the Consumer Financial Protection Board because “they wanted to weaken it.”
“Well, that makes no sense at all,” he told cheering supporters at a high school in Shaker Heights.
“Does anyone think the reason we got in such a financial mess was because of too much oversight?”