President Obama erased any remaining doubt about his intention to emulate President Harry Truman’s 1948 ‘Do Nothing Congress’ reelection campaign yesterday, when he appointed Richard Cordray, without the Senate’s consent, as head of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. But Truman’s reelection campaign may not be the historical reference that best fits Obama’s move. Obama’s growing brazen disregard for the Constitution will ultimately send him to the Supreme Court, where, in 1952, the Justices ruled that President Truman had no power to seize the nation’s steel mills without congressional approval.
Make no mistake, Obama wanted this showdown. If getting the CFPB up and running were his main concern, he could have appointed Cordray on January 1st, when there was a brief window at the end of the year when the U.S. Senate was technically out of session. But Obama passed that up, and the Senate later gaveled back in to pro-forma session soon after. Since then, according to Senate rules, the Senate has been in session.
