The Presidential Appointment Efficiency and Streamlining Act

 According to TPATH, a Drudge Report-style web news service for Tea Partiers and Conservatives, the House and Senate just passed a decidedly unconstitutional piece of legislation:  The Presidential Appointment Efficiency and Streamlining Act.

This act states that dozens of key management positions in the Departments of Agriculture, Defense, Commerce, and Homeland Security (including the treasurer of the United States, the deputy administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration, the director of the Office for Domestic Preparedness, and the assistant administrator of FEMA) will now be filled by presidential edict, without the need of the “advice and consent” of the Senate.

The Framers of the Constitution, TPATH notes, “did not give the President the kingly power to appoint the senior officers of the government by himself. Instead, they allowed the President to name an individual for a senior office, but then required the President to obtain the Senate’s consent before appointing the individual to office. Thus, they required the cooperation of the President and the Senate to put someone in high office.”

What’s most disconcerting about this act is how many Republicans passed, including Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.  Here is New Jersey, only Scott Garrett and Leonard Lance opposed it among our Republican representatives.  The other New Jersey representatives – Frank LoBiondo, John Runyan, Chris Smith, and Rodney Frelinghuysen – all need to hear from their Conservative constituents to find out just what they were thinking (if, indeed, they were thinking at all!) when they passed this bill, giving Obama unlimited power to appoint whatever Marxists, Islamists, Progressives, Leftists, Radicals and Communists he sees fit to appoint.

This is one of the gravest violations of the Constitution in our history, giving unprecedented power to the President.  It effectually makes him a dictator and leaves our other branches of government effectually powerless.  The Founding Fathers set up our federal government to prevent just this sort of thing, as a check against one branch of government gaining too much power, particularly the Executive Branch.  For 200 years the President of the United States needed consent from the Senate for key government appointees. Thanks to Republicans, not anymore.

Nearly every Democrat and 95 Republicans just abrogated their rights as equal representatives of the federal government and handed it over to one man.  How could John Boehner do this?  Were they so terrified of being accused by the Democrats of being “obstructionist”?  Or do they think that what’s good for the goose will be good for the gander, should Romney be elected, and new slate of Senate Republicans follow in on his coat tails?  We send them to Congress precisely to obstruct such unconstitutional measures and would-be tyrants, not genuflect to them and become tyrants themselves.

Here is the link to the bill:

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/112/s679/text

And how your Congressional representative voted:

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/112-2012/h537

This is no end-of-the-world hysteria; this is a black-and-white, in-your-face flagrant violation of the U.S. Constitution.  We are a free nation of laws.  If those laws are subverted, we will cease to be a free nation and descend into anarchy.

This is no time to stick your head in the sand.  Contact your Senator or Congressman and let them know you’re paying attention.  Let them know you won’t accept condescending assurances that there’s no reason for alarm.  This act effectively anoints the president as an emperor.