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Jewish World Review
June 7, 2010
/ 24 Sivan 5770
Sestak a no-go for any job. So what was the deal?
By
Byron York
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
The White House admitted Thursday that it offered Colorado Senate candidate Andrew Romanoff a job at the U.S. Agency for International Development, but it has never said specifically what it offered Rep. Joe Sestak to keep him from challenging Arlen Specter in the Pennsylvania Senate primary. "Efforts were made in June and July of 2009 to determine whether Congressman Sestak would be interested in service on a presidential or other senior executive branch advisory board," counsel Robert Bauer wrote in the one-and-a-half-page White House "report" on the matter. Neither Bauer nor White House spokesman Robert Gibbs gave any more details. Serving on an advisory board, Bauer said, would allow Sestak to keep his seat in the House -- having a Democrat in that seat was a key part of the White House plan -- and still serve "in a high-level advisory capacity." So former President Clinton made his famous call to Sestak, reportedly to discuss a spot for Sestak on the President's Intelligence Advisory Board. "I heard 'presidential board,' and I think it was intel," Sestak later said of his conversation with Clinton. Sestak said he rejected the idea out of hand. Shortly after the release of the White House report, however, we learned that the rules of the intelligence board expressly forbid employees of the federal government from serving. As a member of Congress, Sestak is ineligible to be on the board. So maybe Bauer meant another board. But a closer look at the other presidential boards the White House might have mentioned shows that they, too, bar federal employees. There are three presidential boards in the White House. One is the intelligence board. Another is the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board, which is made up, according to its by-laws, of members "who shall be appointed by the President, from among individuals not employed by the federal government." The third is the recently created President's Management Advisory Board, whose members, the by-laws say, "shall be appointed by the President from among distinguished citizens from outside the federal government." Even a lesser group, like the recently recast President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, is made up of "distinguished individuals and representatives from sectors outside of the federal government." Rep. Sestak would be ineligible for all of them. There's a good reason for the rules. Having a member of Congress serve on a presidential advisory board would violate the separation of powers. "An advisory board is the president's way to get confidential advice, and if you have a member of Congress on the board, are they functioning as a member of the president's board or as a member of Congress?" asks a former White House lawyer. In any conflict with Congress, a president could never claim privilege over the advice he received if a member of Congress were part of the board giving him the advice. "From a separation of powers view," says another former White House attorney, "a president wants command and control over his executive officers, and he wants input to come either from a member of the executive branch or a person reporting only to the executive branch." That's why presidential boards bar members of Congress. But what about the other senior executive branch boards Bauer mentioned? Many of them don't include lawmakers, either. Take the Defense Policy Advisory Board, which advises the Secretary of Defense. There are no members of Congress on it, for the same reasons they don't serve on presidential boards. Would the board member be working for the Pentagon, or for Congress? Besides, the Defense Department, like the president, gets plenty of advice, solicited and unsolicited, from Congress. Finally, the Constitution forbids anyone from holding offices in both the legislative and executive branches at the same time. Article I, Section 6, known as the Incompatibility Clause, says "no person holding any office under the United States shall be a member of either House during his continuance in office." An unpaid board position for Sestak would probably not violate the clause -- that is perhaps why Bauer emphasized that the positions were unpaid -- but the principle of separation of powers is clear. The bottom line is Sestak, as a member of Congress, could not have served on most, if not all, of the boards the White House claims it considered for him. Did the politically savvy Obama team really not know that? Or is the White House not telling us something? <
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Previously:
05/31/10 As economic worries worsen, White House puts on the glitz
05/25/10 GOP dilemma: Fight Kagan, or go along?
05/11/10 Enforcing nation's immigration laws would be a bargain
05/03/10 How Obama could lose Arizona immigration battle
04/27/10 What's behind the anti-Tea Party hate narrative?
04/20/10 As government expands, beware the post-office example
04/19/10 Who wins in 2010? Good luck reading tea leaves
04/12/10 GOP Obamacare strategy: Try repeal, then cut
04/05/10 Obamacare was mainly aimed at redistributing wealth
03/30/10 Message to Dems: People still don't like Obamacare
03/23/10 The coming consequences of Obamacare
03/16/10 Marco Rubio and the Republicans who love him
03/15/10 GOP hopes town halls take health care off table
03/08/10 Dems turn risky health vote into manhood contest
03/01/10 Why Obama defies the public on health care
02/22/10 South Carolina mulls 2012: Romney? Palin? Huck?
02/16/10 GOP winning war over Miranda rights for terrorists
02/09/10 Who are the 300 terrorists held in U.S. prisons?
02/02/10 Is Obama dissatisfied with being president?
01/19/10 The Republican dilemma: Good Michael or Bad Michael?
01/12/10 Now the lawmakers are figuring out what they didn't know
01/05/10 GOP deserves blame for Democratic excesses
12/29/09 Dems' dreams of a blue West begin to turn red
12/22/09 Why Dems push health care, even if it kills them
11/30/09 Dems' kamikaze mission: Health care by New Year's
11/23/09 Why it's a mistake to bring Gitmo prisoners here
11/16/09 Dems' slick fix: $210 billion of fiscal restraint
11/10/09 Obama can't be community organizer for the world
11/02/09 At key moment, Obama leaves health post unfilled
10/26/09 Fierce urgency' for jobs, not health care
10/12/09 Facts hurt Jennings in youth sex controversy
10/05/09 Amid terror threat, Dems chip away at Patriot Act
09/27/09 In Afghanistan, let U.S. troops be warriors
09/21/09 Under fire, Democrats abandon ACORN in drove
09/14/09 Dems stifle Republican health care plans
09/08/09 For Dems, a serious Charlie Rangel problem
09/07/09 Obama's speech: Wrong setting for a sales job
09/01/09 What happened to the antiwar movement?
08/24/09 Why Dems may jam through health care plan
08/17/09 GOP thinks the unthinkable: Victory in 2010
08/10/09 The empty words of a journalist turned flack
08/03/09 Probe finds new clues in AmeriCorps IG scandal
07/27/09 Obamacare haunted by unkept promises of stimulus
07/20/09 Why the GOP failed the Sotomayor test
07/13/09 What the GOPers will ask Sotomayor
06/29/09 Serious questions remain for Mark Sanford
06/22/09 How GOPers can crack the AmeriCorps scandal
06/16/09 Worried about Sotomayor? Consider Andre Davis
06/08/09 Can Mitch Daniels save the GOP?
06/01/09 When the Dems derailed a Latino nominee
05/26/09 Why the GOP will defeat Obama on healthcare
05/19/09 Rosy report can't hide stimulus problems
05/12/09 The Reagan legacy is the man himself
05/05/09 Sen. Specter, meet your new friends
04/27/09 Ted Olson: ‘Torture’ probes will never end
04/20/09 Who's Laughing at the Axis of Evil today?
04/14/09 Congress needs Google to track stimulus money
04/06/09 Beyond AIG: A bill to let Big Government set your salary
03/30/09 On Spending and the Deficit, McCain Was Right
03/24/09 It's Obama's crisis now
03/17/09: Geithner-Obama economics: A joke that's not funny
© 2009, NEA
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