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A Tale of Two Senators from Coal Country: Byrd and McConnell |
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On Monday, we described how President Bush once again made an end run around the U.S. Senate and, with a bit of bureaucratic sleight of hand, kept Richard Stickler in the top post at the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA). When Stickler’s recess appointment expired, Bush named him “acting” MSHA director, which doesn’t require Senate confirmation, something Stickler twice failed to receive.
Mine Workers (UMWA) President Cecil Roberts called the move “outrageous,” and yesterday, one of the most respected media voices in the coalfields, the Louisville Courier-Journal, described the move as typical of Bush’s “arrogant approach” to governing.
If the White House can’t convince the Senate that it has proposed the right choice to head a major federal agency, then the thing to do is appoint him anyway. At least that’s President Bush’s arrogant approach.
The Courier-Journal went on to compare two senators from coal country: one who’s a friend of coal miners and one whose interests lie elsewhere:
Of course, you won’t hear any complaint from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the White House friend on Capitol Hill, to whose wife, Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, Mr. Stickler reports. But a senator who cares about miners’ health and welfare, Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., blasted the Bush designation of Mr. Stickler as a “backdoor maneuver to appoint one of his controversial nominees.”
Click here to read the entire editorial.
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