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News :: Miscellaneous |
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Family Farmers Denounce Bush's Appointment of Thomas Dorr |
Current rating: 0 |
by MRCC/NFFC
(No verified email address) |
10 Aug 2002
Modified: 08:23:40 PM |
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More than 165 grassroots groups have publicly opposed the Thomas Dorr nomination. The Senate Agriculture committee gave Dorr a vote of no confidence last week when it did not recommend the nomination. |
WASHINGTON - August 7 - The Missouri Rural Crisis Center and the National Family Farm Coalition strongly condemned President Bush's recess appointment of Thomas Dorr to the position of Undersecretary for Rural Development in the USDA, and urged Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) to uphold his pledge to obtain USDA documents on Dorr's farming operations.
"We are outraged that President Bush appointed Thomas Dorr through this sneaky back door method, ignoring sixteen months of widespread grassroots opposition," said George Naylor, an Iowa farmer and leader of Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement. "The President obviously knew that Dorr's record, statements and character would not stand up to a vote of the full Senate, just as it failed to win Senate Agriculture Committee approval last week."
"We count on Senator Harkin to live up to his promise to obtain documents that the USDA withheld while this nomination was under consideration," said Bill Christison, Missouri farmer and President of the Missouri Rural Crisis Center and the National Family Farm Coalition. "Now more than ever it is important to expose the unsuitability of this man for a high level job."
More than 165 grassroots groups have publicly opposed the Thomas Dorr nomination. The Senate Agriculture committee gave Dorr a vote of no confidence last week when it did not recommend the nomination.
"This appointment will infuriate people all over the countryside," said Leon Crump, a South Carolina family farmer with the Federation of Southern Cooperatives. "President Bush and Secretary Venemen have proven with this appointment that they stand opposed to an economically and ecologically sustainable family farm system of agriculture, diverse rural communities, and fair access to rural development programs."
Opposition to Thomas Dorr is based on his support of corporate-controlled agriculture, opposition to sustainable agriculture and his view that ethnic diversity is an impediment to economic development. In a letter to Harkin read during his nomination hearing, Dorr revealed his disdain for rural residents who utilize government programs, the very people he will serve as Undersecretary for Rural Development.
In addition, Thomas Dorr admitted he structured his farming operations to "quite frankly avoid minimum payment limitations." Dorr and Dorr family trusts were forced to repay $34,000 for two separate violations. Harkin revealed last Thursday that two Dorr family trusts received $65,000 in farm program payments from 1988 through 1993 and could fall under the same circumstances. However, the USDA continues to withhold further Dorr farming operation records from the public and Senate.
"We will continue to pursue the lawsuit against the USDA to force the release of all Dorr operation farming documents," said Dena Hoff, Montana farmer and North Plains Resource Council member. "Then everyone will know that Dorr is not qualified to represent family farmers or serve in public office."
Missouri Rural Crisis Center
http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/staffra.html
National Family Farm Coalition
http://www.nffc.net/ |
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Some info on recess appointments... |
by Michael Feltes
mfeltes (nospam) ucimc.org (unverified) |
Current rating: 0
10 Aug 2002
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Between Thomas Dorr and Cheryl Halpern, who was just given a controversial recess appointment to the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, I wanted to provide some info about what a recess appointment actually means.
From ThisNation.com:
What is a recess appointment?
Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution grants the President the authority to:
Nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, . . . appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law.
Under normal circumstances, when a vacancy occurs in one of these posts, the President nominates an individual to fill the position and the Senate then votes to either confirm or reject the President's nominee.
However, the Framers anticipated that vacancies would occur while the Senate was not in session. The Constitution provides that (also in Article II, Section 2):
The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.
While this provision is fairly straightforward, it has produced several differences of opinion between the Congress and the President. How many days must the Senate fail to convene for it to lapse into a recess? Does a position have to become vacant during a Senate recess for a valid recess appointment to be made or does the position simply have to remain vacant during the recess?
Instead of allowing the Court to settle these disputes, the Congress and the President have generally agreed to work together to solve them. This makes sense because neither side has a particularly clear interest in forcing the issue. If the President tries to force recess appointments on the Senate, thus circumventing the normal "advice and consent" process, the Congress can refuse to appropriate funds to pay the salaries of the appointees. The Senate might also take the extraordinary measure of blocking future nominations to "teach the President a lesson." Furthermore, if the Senate took a hostile approach to all recess appointments, it would essentially have to remain in session all of the time--an inefficient solution, to say the least.
Currently, the President and Congress generally adhere to a procedure for recess appointments that minimizes the potential for interbranch conflict. If the President wishes to make a recess appointment or appointments, he generally sends a list of persons to be appointed to members of the Senate shortly before or during a recess. If Senators express serious concerns about a nominee, the President will likely hold off on the appointment until the Senate is back in session and the normal procedure can be followed.
So it seems like these appointments are effective, presuming that they were cleared with the Democratic leaders in the Senate, until the Senate chooses to take up their nomination or their next session ends. That could be anywhere from September, when they reconvene, until the swearing-in of the new Congress in January, depending on how Daschle and Bush have worked this out. |
