In his weekly address, President Obama on Saturday blasted Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, who this week threatened to block all pending nominations before the Senate.
Lee was responding to Obama's recent recess appointments of Richard Cordray, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, as well as members of the National Labor Relations Board.
Obama, without mentioning Lee by name, fought back. "One senator gumming up the whole works for the entire country is certainly not what our founding fathers envisioned," he said.
Obama then repeated his State of the Union call for Senate rules reform.
"I’m asking Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, to stop this kind of behavior by passing a rule that allows all judicial and public service nominations a simple up-or-down vote within 90 days," he said.
Lee was not pleased by the president's address, and later responded.
"Ironically, the president invoked our founding fathers in his remarks claiming they did not envision such a defense of our constitutional rights," he said in a statement. "In fact, the founding fathers specifically instituted a system of checks and balances designed to protect American liberties against the unrestrained power of a tyrannical executive."
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