Beltway Confidential

The decision could have wide ramifications. In addition to resolving whether the NLRB has a valid quorum, it could set a major precedent for the limits of executive branch power.

The appeals court ruled that Obama exceeded his recess appointment power when he installed three people on the NLRB. Obama made the appointments when the Senate was not officially in recess. In essence, the White House asserted that it had the right to determine when the Senate was in session.

In January, the appeals court rejected the administration’s position, finding that the Constitution grants the president the power to make appointments only between sessions of the Senate, not when the Senate takes breaks during its regular sessions. The decision effectively invalidated every ruling the NLRB had made since the appointments because without them the board lacked a valid quorum.

The NLRB attempted to ignore the ruling and conduct business as usual, but this proved impossible as business groups used Noel Canning to challenge its decisions. The NLRB eventually asked the Supreme Court to resolve the impasse. Last month, another appeals court ruled that Craig Becker, who received an earlier recess appointment to the NLRB by Obama, was also unconstitutionally installed on the board.

Sean Higgins, Senior Writer

MEDIA

Obama takes charm offensive to the press

With his approval rating in a free fall, President Obama has started an outreach effort to engage a part of his constituency he usually takes for granted: the press.

On the ride home from Europe on Air Force One last week, Obama paid an unannounced, off-the-record visit to the reporters who were traveling with him. Obama has dropped by to visit the press cabin at the back of Air Force One from time to time, but casual facetime between reporters and the president has been rarer than expected.

But Obama’s private powwow with reporters followed another surprise off-the-record session on June 11. Obama stopped by unannounced during a briefing between a group of reporters from some of the nation’s largest print and online outlets and White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough.

Last month Press Secretary Jay Carney had the press corps bristling when he held a private session on Benghazi with a handful of reporters right before his regular briefing with the full White House media contingent. Earlier in the month, Carney huddled privately with a few left-wing bloggers.

The spate of presidential drop-bys and private briefings are hardly random, occurring at a time when the White House is on its heels as never before, dogged by scandals and plunging poll numbers for Obama.

Previously the president had been so disengaged with the press that White House aides kept a group that had traveled with him to Florida cooped up in a van the entire weekend while he golfed with Tiger Woods. Obama’s visit to the back of Air Force One came after the White House press corps publicly expressed “extreme frustration” with its lack of access to the president. Some of the reporters on the plane said he came back grudgingly on the advice of aides and seemed prickly and detached.

Susan Crabtree, White House Correspondent

ENVIRONMENT

Obama pledges carbon limits on power plants

Outlining a series of executive actions to combat climate change, President Obama called for the first U.S. limits on carbon emissions at existing power plants.

Obama also addressed the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry oil from Canada to Gulf Coast refineries, saying the project’s carbon footprint would dictate whether he would approve it. The project is under review by the State Department, and until this week the president had declined to talk about the major clash inside his administration.

With little appetite for climate-change legislation on Capitol Hill, Obama is choosing to press forward with executive actions, mostly coordinated by his EPA, to meet a second-term promise to significantly reduce carbon emissions.

Though environmentalists cheered Obama’s Keystone position, Republicans greeted the president’s declaration as a positive sign for construction of the pipeline.

“The standard the president set today should lead to speedy approval of the Keystone pipeline,” said Brendan Buck, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio. “Based on the lengthy review by the State Department, construction of the pipeline would not have a significant environmental impact. It’s time to sign off on Keystone and put Americans to work.”

The original State Department analysis said the construction of the pipeline would not significantly increase carbon emissions.

Brian Hughes, White House Correspondent

FUNDRAISING

Democrats use voting rights ruling to reel in donations

Congressional Democrats expressed outrage over the Supreme Court’s decision to derail a key component of the Voting Rights Act, but at party headquarters, it’s already a fundraising rallying cry.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee immediately wrote to donors asking for $3 to “help us pressure Republicans in Congress to take action to protect voting rights.”

“As of today, the landmark civil rights legislation NO LONGER fully protects minority voters from state-enacted voter suppression laws — especially in the South — as it has effectively done for nearly four decades,” the email says. “Today’s decision is a serious blow to democracy.”

The DCCC also set up a page on its website devoted to the cause.

The Supreme Court invalidated a provision in the landmark Voting Rights Act that required 16 states to get Justice Department clearance before changing voting laws or drawing new election-district lines. As recently as 2006, the law was reaffirmed by a bipartisan majority of lawmakers.

Steve Contorno, Congressional Correspondent

SURVEILLANCE

Leahy introduces bill to limit government snooping

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy introduced a bill that would cut short by two years the operational authority of the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act courts that allowed the federal government to collect phone and email records of millions of Americans without a warrant.

The Vermont Democrat introduced similar legislation in the past, but never successfully. The latest bill has broader, bipartisan support following revelations from former government contractor Edward Snowden that the National Security Agency has been conducting a broad surveillance program.

Leahy’s bill would shut down the FISA court’s authority by 2015 — at the same time the Patriot Act authorizing it is set to expire — rather than by 2017 as current law now allows.

The bill also would increase reporting requirements for the court and “narrow surveillance authority, where appropriate,” according to Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, a co-sponsor.

It would require that an independent audit be done to determine the impact existing surveillance programs have had on Americans’ privacy.

Polls show Americans generally support the surveillance programs, but a significant majority wants greater congressional oversight of them.

Susan Ferrechio, Chief Congressional Correspondent

HOUSING

Lawmakers move to dissolve Fannie and Freddie

A bipartisan group of senators introduced a plan to reform the housing finance system and shut down the government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Eight members of the Senate Banking Committee proposed creating a new agency modeled after the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to provide backstop insurance for mortgage-backed securities. The agency, which would be called the Federal Mortgage Insurance Corp., would be funded with premiums from private loan issuers. It would require investors to hold 10 cents for every dollar at risk, and provide insurance payouts only after a substantial amount of private capital was exhausted.

The plan would dissolve mortgage buyers Fannie and Freddie over a period of years while the FMIC was created. In addition, it would include an expiration provision to end the FMIC in favor of a fully privatized system of housing finance after eight years.

Currently, about 90 percent of home loans are backed by government guarantees from Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac or the Federal Housing Administration.

Joseph Lawler, Economics Writer

LIBYA

Issa subpoenas State Department officials over Benghazi

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa issued subpoenas for four current and former State Department officials to find out what they know about the fatal terrorist attacks on the U.S. mission in Benghazi.

Issa, in a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry, said he has been unable to arrange interviews with the officials, who Issa said “possess direct knowledge of the event.”

Christopher Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya, was killed in the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks, along with three other Americans.

House and Senate Republicans have been pushing the Obama administration for more information on the attacks and the lack of security in Benghazi as well as the decision not to launch a rescue mission during the attacks.

Issa has issued subpoenas for Eric Boswell, the former assistant secretary for the Bureau of Diplomatic Security; Scott Bultrowicz, the former principal deputy assistant secretary and director of the Diplomatic Security Service; Elizabeth Dibble, the former principal deputy assistant secretary, Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs; and Elizabeth Jones, the acting assistant secretary, Bureau Near Eastern Affairs.

It was revealed during a House oversight hearing that Jones had told the Libyan ambassador after the attack that Islamic terrorists were behind it. Jones had sent that information to nearly all top State Department officials. But just days later, Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said the attack was prompted by an anti-Islam video circulating on YouTube.

Susan Ferrechio, Chief Congressional Correspondent

TAXES

IRS targeting was even more extensive, according to agency head

The temporary chief of the Internal Revenue Service told reporters that the agency was “on the lookout” for more than just Tea Party groups when it decided to give special scrutiny to organizations that applied for tax-exempt status.

Acting IRS commissioner Daniel Werfel pointed to a “wide-ranging set of categories and cases that spanned a broad spectrum.” He did not elaborate on who was targeted in the wider net.

Werfel insisted there was no political motivation behind the targeting and no apparent link to the Obama administration, although congressional investigators have traced it all the way to IRS officials in Washington.

“We have not found evidence of intentional wrongdoing by anyone inside the IRS or involvement in these matters by anyone outside the IRS,” Werfel said.

The report instead found “significant management and judgment failures” within the IRS that prompted the targeting.

Susan Ferrechio, Chief Congressional Correspondent

POLITICS

Liz Cheney: Obama’s right, he’s not as great as my Dad

Obama reminded Americans in a recent interview that he was not Dick Cheney, when it came to supporting surveillance programs.

So Fox News asked Liz Cheney what she thought of his comments.

Cheney’s daughter smiled and told Sean Hannity that she agreed with Obama.

“I do have to say, to give the president some credit, he continues to feel the need to proclaim that he’s not Dick Cheney, and every time I hear him say that, I have to say ‘absolutely,’ she said. “This president is nowhere near the man or the leader that Dick Cheney is.”

Cheney told Hannity that her father laughed when he heard Obama’s comment.

“My dad is a man of honor, a man of integrity, a man who’s got the courage of his convictions, a man who clearly understood and understands today what it takes to make this nation strong, keep the American people secure,” Cheney explained, “Every time Barack Obama says ‘I’m no Dick Cheney,’ anybody who knows Dick Cheney nods their head and says ‘You’re right.'”

Charlie Spiering, Commentary Writer

OFFSHORE DRILLING

Terry McAuliffe, the millionaire former Bill Clinton fundraiser and subsidized green-car maker running for Virginia governor as a Democrat, recently did an about-face on fossil fuel development.

The Washington Free Beacon points out that this switch may have been financially prudent for McAuliffe’s campaign: The candidate recently attended a fundraiser at the home of former Virginia Democratic Rep. L.F. Payne, who is now a lobbyist at McGuireWoods Consulting. Payne has lobbied on behalf of oil companies since 1999, according to disclosure forms.

One of Payne’s top clients is Dominion Resources Inc., a Richmond energy company that has expressed interest in drilling off the Virginia coast if new offshore exploration is approved.

Tim Carney, Senior Political Columnist

CONGRESS

Union leader upset Reid hasn’t acted to end 60-vote filibuster rule

Communications Workers of America President Larry Cohen told the Nation magazine that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., bears “lots” of responsibility for the White House’s inability to get its nominations through the Senate because he has not pushed harder for filibuster reform.

The union leader made the comment during an interview about the chances that Reid will act to end the Senate’s rule that requires the assent of 60 lawmakers before the chamber can vote on most matters. Cohen wants the rule ended and thinks there is a “50/50” possibility that Reid will do so.

He expressed frustration that this hasn’t happened already, claiming that Reid has the 51 votes necessary for the rules change “at this moment” but was hesitating on making the move.

“If we don’t have the Democratic majority act like a majority and establish democratic rules on nominations, the right wing gets their way: You elect a president who can’t govern,” Cohen said.

Sean Higgins, Senior Writer

CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS

Fired Men’s Wearhouse founder a big Dem donor

George Zimmer founded Men’s Wearhouse and seemed to run it pretty well. The company was making a profit, and he had voluntarily gave up the CEO job two years ago. So, why did the men’s clothier fire him as executive chairman? One stock analyst suggesed to Buzzfeed that it was prompted by Zimmer’s role as spokesman for the company.

“The use of Zimmer as spokesperson has, coincidently been under review as management has been evaluating his effectiveness, particularly with the millennial consumer,” he said.

It may well be that a low-key guy with a graying beard doesn’t sell suits to under-20s. If so, this is not a case of a stodgy old conservative, but a graying hippie — Zimmer was a big donor to liberal Democrats.

Zimmer has given about $170,000 to federal candidates over the past three elections, almost all of it to Democrats, with a few gifts to left-leaning or moderate Republicans.

Zimmer gave the maximum $5,000 to Obama’s re-election and also the maximum $4,600 to Obama’s 2008 election.

After maxing out to Obama in the primary ($2,300) in June 2011, Zimmer gave $500 to Hillary Clinton in the primary.

Timothy P. Carney, Senior Political Columnist

POLITICS

Support for Rubio in GOP declines

Sen. Marco Rubio’s support among Republican voters has dropped 15 points since February, shortly after he took a high-profile role in advocating comprehensive immigration reform, according to a new Rasmussen poll.

The survey, of 1,000 likely voters conducted June 20-21, found that 58 percent of Republicans nationwide view Rubio favorably. That’s down from Rubio’s 73 percent favorable rating among Republicans in mid-February. Rubio introduced the Gang of Eight immigration initiative in the last days of January.

The intensity of GOP support for Rubio has also waned. In February, 44 percent of Republicans said they had a very favorable opinion of him. In the new poll, that number is 21 percent.

The decline in Rubio’s favorable rating appears related to his decision to lead an effort — reforming the immigration system — that few believe the government will actually achieve. “Most voters favor the concept of comprehensive immigration reform but do not believe that the government is likely to try and enforce the border security provisions of any new law,” Rasmussen wrote. “Many have viewed Rubio’s role in selling the reform plan as convincing conservative voters that the border security provisions are acceptable.”

As for other voters, Rubio’s favorable rating among Democrats has also fallen, but it has gone up among independents. In February, 20 percent of Democrats and 37 percent of independents had a favorable impression of Rubio. In the new poll, 16 percent of Democrats view Rubio favorably, while his rating among independents has climbed to 41 percent.

Byron York, Chief Political Correspondent