Feldblum, Others to the EEOC in Series of Recess Appointments

Feldblum

Chai Feldblum was one of 15 Obama nominees who today were given recess appointments (White House release) — including several others who will be joining Feldblum at the EEOC. At Metro Weekly, I wrote:

On Saturday afternoon, March 27, the White House announced the recess appointments of 15 administration nominees, including openly lesbian Georgetown University Law Center professor Chai Feldblum to be a commissioner on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. . . .

Obama granted a recess appointment today to all the EEOC nominees, including his nominee to serve as chair of the Commission, Jacqueline A. Berrien. Berrien, according to the White House, has served as the associate director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund since September 2004.

In announcing the move, Obama said in a statement, ”The United States Senate has the responsibility to approve or disapprove of my nominees. But if, in the interest of scoring political points, Republicans in the Senate refuse to exercise that responsibility, I must act in the interest of the American people and exercise my authority to fill these positions on an interim basis.”

Feldblum has a significant history with civil rights legislation in Washington, D.C., having worked closely with the Senate on drafting the Americans with Disabilities Act and worked with Congress and LGBT organization in the crafting of and revisions to the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, currently before Congress.

I earlier covered the Senate confirmation hearing for Feldblum here.

As for the recess appointments themselves, I wrote earlier that I believed this was the very set-up being planned when Obama wrote on Feb. 11 that he would not be issuing recess appointments during the previous recess. I wrote at the time:

At this point, the Senate Republicans have made clear that they are concerned about the Administration — as Ezra puts it — “finding ways to avoid being filibustered.” Obama has made it clear that he views recess appointments as one such option. The set-up is made, and the Administration only needs to point to Senate inaction through the next recess to make its justification to the public for its eventual recess appointments. Or, in the alternative, the Senate Republicans will not hold up Obama’s nominees and the Senate will be able to vote on them.

As much as Ezra wants to pretend that Obama’s Administration is the same as the Bush or Clinton Administrations, the fact remains that it is not. Whether that be a function of Obama’s method of leadership, congressional leadership, the makeup of the Democratic caucus or Republican abuse of the cloture rule, this is the reality in 2010. Moreover, so long as Obama is losing a handful of Democrats — due to illness or actual opposition — on votes like [NLRB nominee Craig] Becker’s (where seven Democrats did not vote for cloture), I think he understandably wants to make sure that he has set up his use of recess appointments as unassailable (though, of course, assailed they will be).

Today, Becker was among those given recess appointments.

It should be noted that both the EEOC and the NLRB were targeted by Obama during this recess. Six of the 15 appointments went to those two boards that represent positive government work in two critical Democratic issue areas: labor and civil rights. Although these are “insider” positions, this was an important step toward making the D.C. groups that were supportive of Obama’s health care reform — despite not getting all that they wanted from the reform — see very quick movement after health-care passage on an issue that is important to them.

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