Some newly elected Republicans came to the House of Representatives with a very clear agenda: to change the course of Washington politics. One measure by which they plan to do so is to target the various “czars” serving in the Obama administration.
Approximately 30 Republicans in the House have introduced a bill that would ultimately “rein in” Obama’s numerous czars. According to The Blaze, the legislation mirrors that introduced in the 111th Congress which failed to progress under the Democratic majority.
In October 2010, Michigan’s Republican Representative Fred Upton declared, “When the Republicans are in charge, you will see the oversight subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee active on a whole host of fronts. How are these czars funded? So whether it be the authorizing committees and appropriations committees in terms of deleting the funds for those, I think you could go after it in one of two different ways.”
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He added, “It is time to hold them accountable for what they are trying to promulgate with rules and regulations.”
Now that Republicans have replaced that Democratic majority, however, the GOP is going to take another crack at passage. Republican Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, along with 28 of his colleagues, hope to eliminate or unempower Obama’s paid advisors.
According to The Hill, “The bill defines a czar as ‘a head of any task force, council, policy office within the Executive Office of the President, or similar office established by or at the direction of the President, who is appointed to a position that would otherwise require Senate confirmation.”
A number of Obama’s czars have been targeted by congressional Republicans, who contend that the they are in the powerful position of advancing agendas. One czar of particular interest to Republicans, Van Jones — Obama’s “green czar,” with notorious radical Marxist affiliations — was eventually forced to resign after news of his past became public.
Likewise problematic for congressional Republicans has been Carol Browner, Obama’s energy czar, who was responsible for the Gulf oil leak effort. and is well known for her efforts to advance the energy and climate bills in Congress.
In 2009, conservative pundit Glenn Beck outlined President Obama’s czars, which he numbered at 32. They were:
• Afghanistan Czar — Richard Holbrooke
• AIDS Czar — Jeffrey Crowley
• Auto Recovery Czar — Ed Montgomery
• Border Czar — Alan Bersin
• California Water Czar — David Hayes
• Car Czar — Ron Bloom
• Central Region Czar — Dennis Ross
• Climate Czar — Todd Stern
• Domestic Violence Czar — Lynn Rosenthal
• Drug Czar — Gil Kerlikowske
• Economic Czar — Paul Volcker
• Energy and Environment Czar — Carol Browner
• Faith-Based Czar — Joshua DuBois
• Government Performance Czar — Jeffrey Zients
• Great Lakes Czar — Cameron Davis
• Green Jobs Czar — Van Jones
• Guantanamo Closure Czar — Daniel Fried
• Health Czar — Nancy-Ann DeParle
• Information Czar — Vivek Kundra
• Intelligence Czar — Dennis Blair
• Mideast Peace Czar — George Mitchell
• Pay Czar — Kenneth Feinberg
• Regulatory Czar — Cass Sunstein
• Science Czar — John Holdren
• Stimulus Accountability Czar — Earl Devaney
• Sudan Czar — J. Scott Gration
• TARP Czar — Herb Allison
• Technology Czar — Aneesh Chopra
• Terrorism Czar — John Brennan
• Urban Affairs Czar — Adolfo Carrion Jr.
• Weapons Czar — Ashton Carter
• WMD Policy Czar — Gary Samore
Just two years later, that number increased to 39, according to the bill’s Republican cosponsors.
Conservative pundit Michelle Malkin reminds her viewers that the opposition to Obama’s “czar fetish” was bipartisan. In September 2009, the late Democratic Senator Robert Byrd wrote to Obama that the “rapid and easy accumulation of power by White House staff can threaten the constitutional system of checks and balances.”
Byrd continued, “At the worst, White House staff have taken direction and control of programmatic areas that are the statutory responsibility of Senate-confirmed officials…. As presidential assistants, they are not accountable to Congress, to Cabinet officials and to virtually anyone but the president.”
Similarly, Democrats Dianne Feinstein and Byron Dorgan articulated concerns with the overzealous appointment of czars, notes Malkin.
How far, and when, the bill to rein in the czars will progress remains to be seen. Scalise spokesman Stephen Bell indicates of the legislation, “We haven’t gotten an indication of an exact timeline for committee action, considering that the bill was just filed yesterday. We hope to have this discussion in the near future as the congressman works to pursue all the bills he has introduced in the 112th Congress.”
Photo of Carol Browner: AP Images
