Obama’s Run-Around of Congress

Q: What do Card Check and Net Neutrality have in common? A: They are bad policy ideas Congress won’t pass, yet the White House is finding ways to work around the lack of support.

Since Congress opposed his agenda to enact Card Check, President Obama found another way to help his union buddies: he put the former leader of a flight attendant union as a member of the National Mediation Board (NMB), which recently ruled 2-1 in favor to overturn a 76 year-old rule on union elections. This new ruling makes it easier for unions to organize and require dues in the airline and railroads industries. The opposing board member stated this was “an unprecedented departure for the NMB and represents the most dramatic policy shift in the history of the agency.”

Likewise, Congress has sat on proposals to enact “Net Neutrality” and the courts rejected the notion that the federal government has authority to regulate the Internet. But President Obama’s close friend and chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Julius Genachowshi, figured out a way to do it without their support. The FCC plans to reclassify the internet to be subject to a decades-old telecommunication rule which would then allow the FCC to label the internet a “market failure” and seize control. This proposal will go into effect unless Congress intervenes to prevent it. A government take-over of the Internet would have devastating effects, which can be read in detail here.

The Obama administration is making historical policy changes without congressional or judicial support. Americans for Prosperity’s ObamaChart highlights this run-around, and includes citizen action items.