David, what makes you think the CFPB will be effective? Without a director, they can’t write rules, and without Senate Republicans agreeing to a director (hah!), there will be no director. Why would Senate Republicans agree to confirm anyone, when they know that preventing a confirmation would essentially kill the agency?

Obama can still recess appoint a director. If he does so at the beginning of the next congress that person could serve almost 4 years.

But I share your general concern that the bureau, at least initially, seems long on data gathering and short on enforcement.

Obama can’t recess appoint anyone if the Senate isn’t in recess, and that can’t happen unless the House concurs. (The US constitution says so in Article 1.) A Republican House would probably not do anything to enable Obama to recess appoint anyone.

That means Obama has from the election to January to recess appoint someone, and I have no idea if he is planning on doing so by then. He could have appointed someone officially back in July. I wish someone would cover this. The CFPB has potential to be one of the most powerful agencies in government in terms of helping he middle class. But if Obama doesn’t recess appoint anyone this year, it is probably dead.

As I understand it there’s a difference between a recess and an adjournment, and the Senate can unilaterally recess by majority vote (no filibuster allowed).

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/04/reid-threatens-to-bypass_n_449695.html

I made a mistake in my first post. Recess appointment are up to two years, not four.

You are correct that the Senate can recess with 51 votes (no filibuster allowed). However, according to the Constitution, I don’t think it can recess for more than 3 days without the consent of the House:

“Neither House, during the Session of Congress, shall, without the Consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other Place than that in which the two Houses shall be sitting.”

And on top of that, Presidents can’t make recess appointments unless the Senate has been adjourned for more than 3 days (at least the way the Constitution has been interpreted in the past). That’s why the Senate is undergoing 2-minute pro forma sessions now every 3 days until mid November, so that the President can’t recess appoint anyone. (Reid did the same thing when Bush was President.)

So it seems to me that even a 1-vote majority in the House can prevent recess orders in the Senate for more than 3 days, which in turn prevent Obama from recessing appointing anyone.

And we might not even have the Senate next year; it looks like it depends on Washington state at this point (and Joe Lieberman). If we lose Senate control, McConnell will certainly not do anything to empower Obama to recess appoint anyone.

It really seems like this whole CFPB comes down to whether or not Obama recess appoints someone before January. And something tells me that he will not (given that he could have done this back in July, or appointed someone through the normal process and had them confirmed). I really hope I’m wrong (either about the above analysis, or my prediction that Obama won’t recess appoint anyone before January).

Still, Elizabeth Warren’s idea is a very good one. Maybe she knows more than we about what Obama will do about her appointment.

No matter what Obama does, Warren isn’t long for this or any official post. She doesn’t defer properly to the string pullers. We just can’t have that.

Warren for President!

Pursuing options to empower Warren and the agency assumes that Obama wants strong consumer protections. I have yet to see evidence this is so.

DeFazio/Warren 2012.

Whatever any of these people do when the Regressives get back in they’ll “capture” these new agencies and then turn then against all of us. Were in a slow motion “Civil war” / Class War and we’d better start to understand that the Regressives are not going to accept anything Warren or Obama or anyone but them does as legitimate. I have Tea Party family and friends that have told me that personally they don’t consider Dems./Progressives and many others as legitimate voters / citizens. They don’t actually believe in democratic practices either. They believe once they control the Gov’t they should be able to stay in power permanently and the rest of us should be disinfrancised as a solution . Their reasoning is many of us are Communists, Islamics , Terrorists and illegal immigrants and have NO rights. ( in their view). I think they’d like some kind of new Constitution with us all written out of it. Sounds crazy but listen to Beck and the rest of the Reich wing howlers lately and you’ll see where these ideas are coming from.

Reminds me of Obama’s promise to put all proposed laws up on the internet so that citizens could be part of the process. And then we got laws that even the Congress didn’t read.

OR the ONLY Thing that Really WORKS: Kick-ass ENFORCEMENT against ANY and ALL Corporate SOCIOPATHS!

OMG, she understands the Tubez! quick, get Gordon Liddy, to make her disappear. Populist, female, understands econonmics and the Internet, she’s trouble for sure.

Yeah! I gets complaint HOT LINE! Woo-Hoo!

I don’t know what good it will do, but I can tell you now if consumers have a crack in the wall to get through somebody will see it.

Warren is Exhibit “A”.

If anyone is interested Peter DeFazio is being interviewed on Portland Progressive radio.

http://620kpoj.com/main.html

Warren/Krugman ’12. It’s time we stopped interfering in the middle east and looked to create our own sustainable, Earth friendly economy.

I disagree. If Obama had been serious, he would have told Dodd to stfu and get in line and made Warren director. Warren’s post is just a bone to the progressives. After the election, I see her being chivvied out of office pretty quickly.

Definitely!

Our money is being thrown at private corps to “nation build”, and plunder their natural resources. It all goes to the corporations and they get all the profit. It is a mass haul for them, and taxes paid back to the US–fagettaboutit!

It really has shamed our military that they cannot get OBL or tame a small group of Alciadas. Yes, I spelled it that way on purpose because we have given them the bullets to shoot us with.

I think your assessment is right on. These people have no regard for human rights, fairness or civility in the general. Winners get to do what they want to. All outside their circle are untermenschen.

Appointing her has only given liberals a princess around which to spin fairy tales. She has and will have no power.

In a crowd-sourcing model, you have to figure out how to prevent it from being gamed by vested interests. Wikipedia has had this problem and depends on a squad of volunteer moderators to keep things relatively honest. But then the moderator pool could be gamed.

And the system is subject to all sorts of cyberattacks that would seek to deny posting to folks with certain information.

This will not be an immediate problem, but as the agency gains the power of enforcement it will become one. In a lot of respects, it depends on the “crowd” to keep the system honest.

But there will be pushback, though it is impossible to predict from what sector it will come from first.

The president has the power to appoint an Acting Director without Congressional approval.

I don’t know about all that but it would sure seem to be that way.
He has the Patriot Act powers and can whip up a cat food commission over night.

It would seem reasonable that he can fill his cabinet/agencies without a head nod from congress.

Warren has already been hauled before congress and given the GOP fourth degree. The only thing to see here is that Obama is not going to give her the legality.

The only thing to see here is that Obama is not going to give her the legality.

Or the power. She’s a bone to the base. Period. And she’ll be gone before the first dawn of 2011.

Oh goody more stuff for Oh Bummah! to ignore

Is anyone listening to DeFazio talking about impeaching Robers?

http://620kpoj.com/main.html

Don’t worry, Barry is going to appoint a republican who loses a narrow race to the democrat next week. To show he’s ready to work with the new “team” in the House.

Margaret is right. Warren is gone. Wouldn’t you be? Rather than hang around this clown’s flaccid next two years?

Barry is going to appoint a republican who loses a narrow race to the democrat next week. To show he’s ready to work with the new “team” in the House.

Toomey or perhaps Buck.

I love the photo of Warren. The hand positioning makes it look like she’s aiming for some bankster’s soft tissues.

Using new systems to organize and find patterns in all that information, Warren said, the bureau could be able to spot new enforcement targets in a matter of days

Very smart. Go Elizabeth Warren…

HA! I was just thinking that. Bohoner has probably already promised that job away to one of his crew.

Toomey or perhaps Buck.

Wow, that would be a tough call. /s

Can’t get there now. Would love for you to give us a post on it.

Essentially, she wants the CFPB to run like a blog.

Oh, that’s good news. I complain that my toaster doesn’t work and some asshole in Utah calls me a traitor. That should solve the problem.

I think that guy who stomped on that woman’s head might work.

But if it works, you have a much quicker and more nimble regulator, able to identify and react to problems in Internet time. And it could be a model for adoption across regulatory agencies.

While it is probable that the Wiki thing (including moderators) can be gamed, I would also submit that the idea is a very good one, and if it catches on, a whole new dimension of reporting opens up. Further, there are millions of pissed off people out there in the hinterlands, and pretty much all of them have access to the innertoobz machine. So suck on that, B of A.

Good thinking. If he ain’t in the joint…which I hope he will be. DN reported that the charge was 4th degree, so he’ll probably be sentenced to “no TV for three nights.”

Or, a stiffer sentence may be that he has to watch Barry’s speech on election night — just once.

Essentially, she wants the CFPB to run like a blog. … if it works, you have a much quicker and more nimble regulator, able to identify and react to problems in Internet time. And it could be a model for adoption across regulatory agencies.

If you think the banks, insurance companies, and other big corporations are going to let Warren set up a hot line for complaints against them, you are fucking delusional. Oh, a system might be set up to allow folks to THINK that’s what’s going on. They may THINK that their emails are being received and acted upon, but in reality they will be treated just like spam.

Warren/Krugman ’12 – good one, Margaret! I’d vote for these 2 in a heartbeat.

What an imaginative thinker! I hope this crowd-sourcing thing really takes off.

Haha. Imagine the battles: citizens vs. corporate trolls with mods caught in the middle. It would be the blogosphere’s Antietam.

There’s an existing “crowdsourcing” US government website (challenge.gov) and 44 “Challenges” posted. I participated in one and thought it was largely a fiasco. One problem was that a right-wing radio host misunderstood the question and encouraged his listeners to state their objection to national identity cards (not what the question was about) and the discussion was overwhelmed by dozens and dozens of people cutting and pasting in canned anti-government rants. I’m not sure that there actually were any good ideas submitted.

Warren/Hamsher 2012!

Thanks for highlighting this, David. The full impact of crowd-sourcing and other social media amalgamation for useful governmental purposes has the potential to shove aside fear-based, low-information methods of social control that seem to be working smoothly now for our corporate masters.

True, Obama will not support Elizabeth Warren in meaningful ways. But things don’t always happen predictably. Sometimes, technological ideas get out of the genie’s bottle, and they don’t get put back.

Push back from whom? When? They own both parties.

I agree. Obama and his admin. are just Corp. HR. We all know what happens if you complain to HR.

Warren has two things that I like in a woman, looks and brains. Of the two I find the second more important.

Yeah, that’s my fear, that’d it end up being astroturfed by lobbyists or hijacked by talk show audiences.

You go girl! Let’s change the image of government regulation from inefficient drag on the economy to net-based instant fraud detection. Obama is beginning to surround himself with the future of the democratic party – Liz Warren, Austan Goolsbee, Hilda Solis. Plus Elena Kagan dissented in a death penalty case today.

Hey all, how’s life?

Color me skeptical. Looks to me like we’re fighting the wars of the last decades. The fact that massive control fraud is what we do hasn’t sunk in widely enough.

Putting the “the power of the federal gov’t” behind a massive, coordinated, recon mission? We’re supposed to tell the very people who are robbing us blind how effective (or not) their methods are?

We’re still defining ourselves as gazelles at the national watering hole, still throwing us to the wolves by definition. The DOJ has become a criminal defense shop for our self-appointed MOTU. To whom do we appeal for redress of wrongs, the perps themselves?

HAMP did more harm than good, likely by design, and yet somehow we’re to believe CFPB will be different? Have we been flashy thinged stupid?

That clicking sound I’ve been hearing must be the heels of all those ruby slippers. Except the chant I hear sounds more like, “They’re coming for our homes. They’re coming for our homes. They’re coming for our homes.”

Look. ObamaCo is covering up crimes much more grave than these. What in this benighted land makes us think it will suddenly “get better” because of the consumer effing predation bureau?

Control fraud is what we do. Reporting on our predation to our predators — brilliant! Expecting them to what, go on a diet? Good luck with that.

The problem is that he does NOT have the power to make anyone acting director without Congressional approval. Some very early news reports erroneously stated that, but it turns out that the only thing Obama can do in the “interim” is to have the Treasury secretary (or their designee, the “interim director”) move employees from other agencies. The interim director cannot write a single rule affecting a single bank — the authority to do so is just not there under Dodd-Frank as written. Any rules that the interim director attempted to write would be easily thrown out in court, since they don’t have the authority.

The only other way Obama could appoint an acting director without Congressional approval or recess appointment is through the Vacancies act. But that only applies when a vacancy is caused by a resignation/firing. It specifically does not apply to a new agency that has never had a confirmed director.

There are literally only two options for Obama to appoint a director that has the power to write rules affecting banks (or anyone else). One is Senate Confirmation (which I cannot see happening), and the other is a recess appointment. My point is that if Obama wants to do a recess appointment, he has to do it before January, because after January, the Republicans will likely control the House and use that power to prevent the Senate from recessing for more than 3 days (which the House has the power to do under the Constitution).