Every day that the Senate refused to confirm
Richard Cordray, Obama’s nominee for the new “consumer watchdog”
agency created by the Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill, was
another “when millions of Americans were left unprotected.” So
Obama, in a flagrantly unconstitutional gambit, invoked the Recess
Appointments Clause to install Cordray, Senate confirmation be
damned. Obama isn’t the first president to invoke that
exception where it doesn’t apply, writes Gene Healy, but he is the
first to do it when the Senate is actually in session.