The Congressional Review Act Is The First Line Of Defense Against Obama Regime's Regulatory Power Grabs

From Big Government:

Congressional Review Act Is the First Line of Defense Against Obama’s Regulatory Power Grabsby Seton Motley


The November 2nd election results caused in Democrats several strains of mental illness – bouts of depression, delusion, deep-seated rage and others were all exhibited in various Donkey quarters.







But going forward, the Obama Administration will exhibit a strategic psychosis – policy schizophrenia.



For public consumption – with the perpetual assistance of his servile media – there will be the “new” President Barack Obama. The “shellacked,” humbled man who claims to get that his Party’s policies were historically rejected by the American people. Whose now moderated, bipartisan, Triangulated work with the Republicans will make former President and 1994 “shellackee” Bill Clinton look recalcitrant and amateur.



We saw much evidence of this new PR push with the deal to keep the tax rates for the next two years exactly what they’ve been for the last eight. This we were told was Obama’s new Third Way – a deal which upset both Conservatives and Progressives and therefore must be fantastic Moderate Obama policy.



But President Obama is a diehard Leftist ideologue – who loathed the agreement as much as or more than any fellow Democrat.





In fact, True Obama slipped out – in a public pronouncement on the deal, he referred to his new bipartisan buddy Republicans as “hostage takers.” After it passed, he couldn’t even bring himself to say anything – instead appointing Clinton President Czar and ceding him the podium.



Which brings us to the Obama Administration’s second schizophrenic policy personality.



Going forward, in real terms, President Obama is incapable of a Clinton-esque move to the Middle. He will do his best to put on a public show, but his Big-Government-At-All-Costs agenda will continue unabated. It will just be done behind the scenes via rampant, abusive expansion of the vast regulatory authority at his disposal.



Every Commission, every Agency, every Board in the federal pantheon will ratchet up their orders, rules and directives. To impose via executive branch regulatory fiat what President Obama can no longer get done in Congress. In other words, bypass the obviously expressed will of the American people for smaller, more accountable government – so as to continue jamming through his on-all-fronts Titanic Government plan. And do so without the People’s representatives at all involved in the process.



It is through this prism at which we must look at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)’s December 21st vote to begin their unauthorized regulation of the Internet. Three unelected Democrat bureaucrats just voted themselves Internet Overlords, commandeering vast new power over 1/6th of our economy.



They have no authority to do so – the FCC cannot regulate anything unless and until Congress writes a law making it so, and they know it – but that hardly bothered them. And it won’t stop any of the myriad other of Obama’s regulatory armies.



The federal Cap & Tax on – I mean Trade – energy bill didn’t pass? No problem, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will enforce large swaths of it just as if it did. The union vote secret-ballot-abolishing Card Check didn’t pass? No sweat, the Department of Labor and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) will just pretend it did and move forward implementing it.



An on, and on, and on….



Thankfully, there are Congressional checks on rogue federal agencies. There is of course the power of the purse – the Congress can predicate funding based upon the funds not being used for this or that power grab.



And there is the Congressional Review Act (CRA). This is a way for the People’s representatives to overturn an agency’s dictatorial action. The lead Republicans on the respective FCC oversight Committees in the House and Senate – Representative Fred Upton and Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison – both mentioned this magic acronym immediately after the December 21st vote.



The CRA must be fully effected within sixty (60) days of an agency order being filed – for the FCC Internet power grab, the clock started Thursday.



The CRA requires but a simple majority in the House for it to pass. Given the new Republican majority there, this should be readily and rapidly accomplished. (A coincidence, I’m sure, but you’ll note FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski executed his Internet usurpation as far away from the new Congress’ swearing-in as possible.)



Thirty Senator signatures on a letter gets it to the floor there – again, probably not a problem. And due to the compacted timeline, no filibuster is allowed. So 51 votes – not 60 – are all that is needed for passage. There are 47 Republicans in the new Senate – Maine’s Olympia Snowe was once bad on Net Neutrality, but has backed off her original position. Regardless, we need to get a handful of Democrats – amongst whom are 20 up for reelection in 2012.



Passage there places it on President Obama’s desk – and puts him in a very bad spot. Which of his policy schizophrenia personalities will he allow to make this decision?



Anything that gets to him is a very public thing – will he adhere to his Moderate Obama public persona and sign the overturn of this egregious example of federal government overreach? The exact sort of thing against which the American people prodigiously voted in November? The “shellacking” which Public President Obama says he understands and to which he has now pledged to listen?



Probably not. Most likely, he will veto it – which will help put the lie to the Triangulation we are being told is President Obama’s New Way. And that will be a most helpful visual aide.



Oklahoma Republican Senator Tom Coburn has said we should pass a repeal of the overwhelmingly unpopular ObamaCare once a month every month and force the President to repeatedly veto it. We should do the exact same thing with the CRA – on the FCC’s heinous Internet abduction and everything else the President intends to do without the consent of the governed.



All to help us diagnose – and identify – President Obama’s policy schizophrenia. And force him to show us – again – who the real Obama is.