Two Amtrak board members appointed by President Bush during the 2004-2005 Congressional recess—Floyd Hall, a former chief executive of K-Mart, and Enrique Sosa, a former president of BP Amoco Chemicals—have been reappointed to another one-year term during the current recess in a move widely criticized as a tactic to circumvent Congress.
Hall and Sosa, neither of whom have any practical railroad experience, have been described by critics as Bush loyalists who support the Administration’s efforts to break up Amtrak and privatize some of its operations. They rejoin Chairman David Laney, a Texas attorney, and U.S. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta on Amtrak’s board. Mineta reportedly has never attended a board meeting and has designated General Counsel Jeffrey Rosen to represent DOT at meetings. Though three seats remain vacant on the seven-member body, the board maintains the four-member quorum needed to carry out Amtrak business.
Hall and Sosa’s reappointments have been strongly criticized by the United Transportation Union, which represents a substantial number of Amtrak train and engine service personnel. UTU said in a statement that President Bush “chose expediency and political loyalty over competency and senatorial courtesy” in reappointing them. Recess appointments, though permitted by the U.S. Constitution, bypass the formal Senate confirmation process when the Senate is out of session. They are usually made during “extraordinary situations,” said UTU. “Bush used the unpopular process simply to put two loyalists on the Amtrak board whom he knows the Senate has no interest in confirming.”
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Hall made $250,000 in political contributions to the Republican National Committee in 2002 (the most recent year for which data is available). CRP says that Sosa is also a contributor to Republican political campaigns. Laney
I’m not surprised. The current regime seems to have little respect or use for the legislative and judicial branches and insists that it has the authority to do as it pleases with NO oversight.
I heard a frightening statistic the other day. Of all the presidents over the last 80 years, this one has the lowest IQ. His father was a close second. It takes a stupid person to think that nobody would notice such dealings. I’m very encouraged by the recent deveploments in Washington, with regard to exposing corruption.
The burning question in my mind is: Will Bush survive his term? Scandals growing larger by the day, and all of his cronies exposed, I smell a repeat of Nixon. We need to make sure Cheney goes first, just like Agnew. We wouldn’t want him in the White House. He might have a brain, then we’d really be in trouble. Most people don’t realize they elected Karl Rove.
The truth will set you free!!!
Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it!!!
Since this thread is going to go pear shaped fast…
So this is new??? Blah blah blah …It’s not just a Republican thing, we could bring up some other names…Daley, LBJ, JFK, FDR, Long, Clinton …a few skeletons there regarding abuses of power…nor is it just a Democrat thing…show me a clean politician…
Sorry to disappoint you, but despite the scandalous tone the story tries to impart, I see only an ordinary day-to-day executive decision. You put people who are at your beck and call into such positions. A typical board position in a major U.S. corporation rarely requires operations expertise. They do require experience with corporate governance, however, which seems to be the case with these two individuals. These board appointments would be unremarkable, even commendable, if made for a great majority of publicly owned corporations.
Amtrak isn’t a publicly owned corporation, it’s a government entity, a source of political patronage. In such a case when comes to making political appointments experience and competence have little bearing – loyalty and trust do. That Bush is doing this while Congress is in recess is also unremarkable.
Generally when a Democrat is President, the Republications have taken the position that he has the right to chose his people for appointed positions.
The Democrats, especially recently, believe that the have the right to not confirm the Republican President’s apointments based on politics, not ability or merit.
What is wrong with the President apointing people that will work with him, not against him?
…Yes, and these kinds of appointments have just brought Amtrak through the recent firing of probably one of the most competent, knowledgeable railroad men available to try to make some sense out of running, improving and improving economic numbers, etc…for the passenger rail system in this country.
Not quite that clear cut. Unfortunately, there’s been no other time in recent history that we’ve had the Executive and Legislative branches controlled by the same political party.
Actually, the way the government is set up, they DO have the right not to confirm appointments, regardless of the political party you’re talking about. I’m afraid your “ability and merit” statement falls apart when you look at the background of the two appointees.
That certainly may be true, but it’s beside my point. I’m responding to the article’s implied tone of scandal, with which I can’t agree.
Executives serve at their board’s pleasure. Gunn seems to have been fired because the direction he wanted to take Amtrak differed from his board’s. When push comes to shove between a CEO and his board, the CEO almost always loses. Gunn is only the latest example in corporate history of an executive who neglects to curry favor with his board – competent manager gets canned because rubs his board the wrong way or ignores them.
Like a bad marriage, I suspect there’s blame on both sides.
I know nothing about the appointees, but obviously the President does not agree with you.
The Democrats are playing political games and the Republican “majority” is not solid enough to beat them. Too many RINOs[:(] and also too many politicians of all stripes who care more about getting reelected and feathering there own nests than they do about our Nation[:(!] Recess apointments are legal.
I do not agree with President Bush about a lot of things, but I do believe he is honest and wants the best for our country. I also believe that Cabinet level appointments have are some of the best people we have seen in government in many years.
…It would be certainly helpful…to our system of passenger rail in this country if it was not embedded in politics…If somehow we could decide if it was to be or not to be…and if it was to be, to develope a system of funding that long range planning could improve the system…and make it much more useful and reliable. Install a leader like the one that was just fired to make sure we’re getting our money’s worth, etc…maybe we’d have something that we wouldn’t have to hide our face from when it’s compared to many other systems in the free world. Politics have been kicking it around for 30 plus years back and forth…fund it, don’t fund it…how long can we continue wasting money like this when perhaps we could be “building” a system that would do so much a better job…Disgusting as it is now…and the new “board” we are with for sure won’t do anything towards that end…
My, my my. The board libs here are getting fired up again over another of Bush’s decisions. For once can’t you libs leave your hatred for Bush out of this because, quite frankly, you’ll never be happy no matter who he appoints.
that has no merit, as it’s come to light that brown was competent and it was the fault of the entire fedeal government to move FEMA into the Homeland security division, thus diminishing it’s effectiveness. Brown has expressed major cocern over this move when it happened and even predicted that the move would cause FEMA to react less than perfect, due to having another link in the chain to deal with.