Czar Watch: Testify before Congress or lose your funding
The push for czar accountability — a major theme of Culture of Corruption — continues.
In the Senate, GOP Sen. Susan Collins yesterday proposed an amendment to the Interior Appropriations bill that would restrict federal funds of at least 18 appointed Obama czars. There are currently four co-sponsors. You can see the amendment text here.
Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
Collins’s statement on the floor yesterday:
Mr. President, I rise to offer an amendment to ensure that the new czars appointed by this Administration can be held accountable to Congress and to the American people.
The effective functioning of our democracy is predicated on open government, on providing a transparent process for the people we serve. It cannot instill trust and confidence in its citizenry unless it fosters accountability.
It is against that backdrop that I raise my strong concerns regarding the Administration’s appointment of at least 18 new “czars” to manage some of the most complex issues facing our country.
As I recently expressed in a letter to the President, I am deeply troubled because these czars fail to provide the accountability, transparency, and oversight necessary for our constitutional democracy.
The creation of “czars” within the Executive Office of the President and elsewhere in the Executive Branch circumvents the constitutionally mandated “advice and consent” role our Founding Fathers assigned to the Senate. It greatly diminishes the ability of Congress to conduct meaningful oversight and to hold officials accountable for their actions. And it creates confusion about which officials are responsible for the government’s policy decisions.
Senators Lamar Alexander, Christopher Bond, Mike Crapo, Pat Roberts, and Robert Bennett joined me in writing to the President about these important issues. We identified at least 18 “czars” whose reported responsibilities may be undermining the constitutional oversight responsibilities of Congress or express statutory assignments of responsibility to other Executive branch officials.
To be clear, I do not consider every position identified in various reports as a “czar” to be problematic. Positions established by law or subject to Senate confirmation, such as the Director of National Intelligence, the Homeland Security Advisor, and the Chairman of the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, do not raise the same concerns about accountability, transparency, and oversight. Furthermore, we all recognize that Presidents are entitled to rely on experts who serve as senior advisers.
As I noted earlier, however, “czar” positions within the Executive Office of the President are largely insulated from effective Congressional oversight. And many “czars” appointed by this Administration seem either to duplicate or dilute the statutory authority and responsibilities that Congress already has conferred upon Cabinet-level officers and other senior Executive branch officials.
Indeed, many of these new “czars” appear to occupy positions of greater responsibility and authority than officials who already have been confirmed by the Senate.
Whether in the White House or elsewhere, these “czar” appointments are not subject to the Senate’s constitutional “advice and consent” role. Little information is available concerning their responsibilities and authorities. There is no careful Senate examination of their character and qualifications. And we are speaking here of some of the most senior positions within our government.
The appointments of so many czars have muddied the waters, causing confusion and risking miscommunication going forward. We need to know, with clarity: Who is responsible for what? Who is in charge – the czar or the Cabinet official? Who can Congress and the American people hold accountable for government policies that affect daily life?
For those reasons, Mr. President, I offer an amendment that would prevent any more federal funds from being made available for the administrative expenses of any “czars” until two key conditions are met.
First, our amendment would require the President to certify to Congress that every czar will respond to reasonable requests to testify before, or provide information to, any congressional committee with jurisdiction over matters the President has assigned to that individual.
Second, our amendment would require every czar to issue a public, written report twice a year to these same congressional committees. This report would include a description of the activities of the official and the office, any rule, regulation, or policy that the official or the office participated in the development of, or any rule, regulation, or policy that the official or the office directed be developed by the department or agency with statutory responsibility for the matter.
This amendment would represent a significant step toward establishing an oversight regimen for these positions that would provide the transparency and accountability our nation expects from its leaders – transparency promised by this Administration during last year’s campaign.
Beyond the specific requirements of this amendment, I, along with the five other co-signers of my letter, have asked that the President consult carefully with Congress prior to establishing any additional “czar” positions or filling any existing vacancies in these positions.
As our letter states, we stand ready to work with the President to address the challenges facing our nation and to provide our country’s senior leaders with the legitimacy necessary to do their jobs. To ensure that successful outcome, we must eliminate the serious shortcomings associated with “czars.”
We must rebuild and continually fortify the cherished standards of accountability, oversight, and transparency – not erode them further. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.
***
Roll Call reiterates a point I made in CoC and repeatedly on this blog: The concerns about czarism transcend partisanship.
Doubts about “czarism” were expressed long before the Jones dust-up by Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd (W.Va.), who wrote to Obama in February that “the rapid and easy accumulation of power by White House staff can threaten the constitutional system of checks and balances.
“At the worst, White House staff have taken direction and control of programmatic areas that are the statutory responsibility of Senate-confirmed officials. … As presidential assistants, they are not accountable to Congress, to Cabinet officials and to virtually anyone but the president.”
Also this month, Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold (Wis.) wrote Obama, asking him to square his naming “czars” with the Appointments Clause of the Constitution, which provides that executive posts should be created by law and subject to Senate confirmation.
Feingold is trying to get the administration to cooperate in hearings before his Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, and Collins and Sen. Joe Lieberman (ID-Conn.) are discussing hearings in the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
We hope the administration will cooperate with both panels and, to the extent that “czars” are making policy and can’t be questioned by Congress, that Members will “call out” the White House.
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Categories: czars
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Is this nightmare ever going to end?
Hah! This president answers to no man! Viva la Presidente! Viva la Generalissimo!
Is sarc tag necessary?
Probably the only thing Susan (RINO) Collins has ever done that I could in any way agree with and support …
I still want to know where all the money comes from to keep paying all these “czars” … seems to be unlimited …
Michelle, see this! From Andy McCarthy:
The Obama administration has notified Congress of the State Department’s intention to contribute $400,000 to foundations run by Muammar Qaddafi’s two children — $200,000 each for daughter Aisha and son Saif. Saif, you may recall, is the son who escorted the Lockerbie terrorist Abdel Baset al-Megrahi home to a hero’s welcome in Libya.
I just checked outside to see if pigs were flying! Collins??? This will tick off bho and team big time.
L
Why are there only 5 sponsors? Is that all the republicans left in the Senate?
Senator Enzi, Senator Barrasso, why are your names not associated with this? I asked you about it back in July before the August recess, and again at the townhall meeting in Gillette.
Stand up and do your job guys.
Is there anybody in the Senate less relevant than Susan Collins? Even the Democrats don’t bother to pay any attention to her while they’re courting Olympia Snowe.
Please impeach this little tin-pot Napoleon now before he evolves into something akin to Mao or Stalin.
Obama: “And you racist point is?”
you = your (slap!)
Sen Byrd went on to say, “If they want to accumulate enormous power over policy and budgetary issues, these czars should, at least, have to be elected to the Senate from a tiny hillbilly state such as West Virginia, seven or eight times, as I had to be.”
The fact ‘lil Napoleon has gotten this far with virtually no opposition speaks volumes regarding our “leaders” in Washington. I’d like to see a 90 year old WWII vet take a cane to him in public – about the only class of people the American Marxist elite couldn’t effectively tar and feather.
No, this is appropriate – when Obama slips into street cred mode as he is prone to do when around his friends.
This is twice this year GOP Sen. Susan Collins has something that SEEMS to make sense. I think I’ll lay down and see if I feel better–I am all confused.
Little Nicky was not the only Czar of All the Russians to be killed, murdered, fall into a hole, off his horse and have other unpleasant things happen. And may it always be so. I do not CARE if a Republican President started it: such postitions have no place in a republic.
Now for that nap and dream of Susan Collins
Obama thinks our Constitution is outdated and irrelevant. By extension, his attitude would be nothing but scorn for the Senate’s constitutional “advise and consent” role.
Special Advisors to the President, or in the colloquial shorthand, ‘Czars’ is the question.
The word that jumped out at me was ‘appear’. That says more about Sen Collins than it does about the questions she raises. The Special Advisors to the President already have definitions and job descriptions, have no signature authority and no budgetary authority.
Do individual Senators and Representatives have Advisors, or Special Advisors? Should they be subject to some sort of public vetting process, too? What about committee staff who have expertise on specific subject matter. Should they be publicly vetted, too?
Should the rules, practices and past traditions be changed, shouldn’t they be changed for everyone?
Not saying there should not be increased knowledge, but am more curious about the motives behind the request after having Special Advisors to the President for so many years.
More on Special Advisors (Czars) here -
http://www.democrats.org/a/2009/09/the_bush_czars.php
Did you say RINO GOP Sen. Susan Collins?
Are you sure? You mean she’s actually asking Duh One questions instead of kissing his butt!?!?
This needs to be applied to all czars.
There are no good unaccountable government officials at ANY level!
Now me, I would force all czars to be direct reports to the Chief of Staff and force them all to be confirmed by the senate.
Yes, on January 20, 2013.
I have no doubt the Republic will survive until then. It’ll be banged up and dented and will require some serious repair work, but President Palin will be up for it.
Zyzzyg, if czars have no bugetary authority, how did Van Jones gain control of the $30 billion green jobs kitty?
Indeed. There is a difference between someone that advises an executive (who is then held accountable) and a delegation of authority to someone who has access to funding and can execute policies they write.
The czars are doing much more than just offering advice. Also, where there is confusion between the accountability between cabinet officers (who are vetted and approved) and czars (who are merely appointed) we have a problem. Having some clarification as to whether or not the cabinet secretary can be held accountable is important.
We can play games around the Tu Quoque arguments being raised around Bush’s advisors, but such assertions only underscore the issue, not justify it.
Have the Treasury deputy roles been filled? If not, isn’t it odd how czars seem to be coming from all over the place but the administration cannot fill the already named positions?
Did she actually stand up and say all that in Congress? If so, I pity those who had to sit and listen. How long did that little speech take…4 hours?That woman drives me nuts!! Have you ever heard her speak? Gag. She talks so slowly and deliberately, most in congress were probably snoring within 5 minutes.
In answer to Salt’s last question, why VET when you dont have to?
Please site the source of your information, because that is just it, questionable assertions add to the confusion.
Special Advisors have no budgetary or signature authourity. No ability to regulate or implement changes within any department. I will grant they may have a level of funding resources. Yep, that money is doled out under the Executive budget and no doubt include office expenses.
$30 billion is alot of pens and pencils.
This brings to mind a bumpersticker:
“Do not steal; The
governmentCzars hate competition.”It seems to me that these czars have way too much power:
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2009/09/23/phil-kerpen-browner-secret-white-house-power-grab/
The WH is already urging dems to not vote to handicap the czars.
The link above to Collins’ amendment proposal didn’t work, but I think this is it here. Does this proposal mean that Rep. Kingston’s proposal is dead? I don’t think so. Rep. Scalise has also introduced the SAC Act, so Collins isn’t the only one in Congress trying to get to the bottom of the czar issue.
Transparency over the czars’ budgets has been lacking, so assertions by either side in that regard are deservedly questionable. However, it should be reasonable to assume that the czars will oversee the budgets in the areas of which they were put in charge on the president’s behalf in order “to coordinate activities within the government to address immediate challenges,” so I can see why some look to the money appropriated to those particular areas to deduce the czars’ budgets.
I commend Sen. Collins for finally acquiring a spine, but she has one important detail wrong!
We are a Representative Republic, and anyone who has sat in the Senate chamber as long as she has should know that!
Hmmm…
There are 28 comments in this thread… why are they numbered in the 800,000s???
The numbers don’t signify the amount of comments—it’s an ongoing tally of administration czars.
B’dumpum.
It’s always bothered me that the position Czar even exists in this country.
Those who don’t learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.
ROTFLMAO!!!!!
I pray that you’re right. Forgive me for my skepticism but I don’t have a lot of confidence in the people who have thus far continued to put idiots like Murtha, Specter, McLame, etc in office year after year. I HOPE for CHANGE but fear the asylum has been over run by the craziest of the patients.
LOL.
Well that didn’t get very far….
More ammunition for the next election cycle. Anytime Dems try to bring up transparency, this should haunt them. Hopefully, voters are paying attention.
HAHAHAHAHA!
Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd… sir, perhaps you’ve heard of this little document called the Constitution. In Article II Section 2 Clause 2, it states…
He shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States, whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by law: but the Congress may by law vest the appointment of such inferior officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of departments.
Sen. Bryd, in light of ongoing un-Constitutional Czar appointments, will you press for impeachment proceedings against the President for knowingly circumventing Senatorial oversight, a known violation of his Oath of Office?
The RINO Collins took the lead on this? I’m shocked.