Scott Brown's vote shocks GOP comrades

WASHINGTON ? Here in the nation?s capital and in the Bay State, some folks are perplexed by the curious case of Sen. Scott Brown and his decision to back President Obama?s controversial recess appointment last week ? a move that irked his Republican comrades and placed him squarely on the side of his likely Democratic challenger.

Let?s back up. Over the past year, the White House and congressional Republicans have engaged in an epic battle over the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a watchdog agency created by the Dodd-Frank Act and built from the ground up by Elizabeth Warren.

Republicans hate the bureau, saying it?s too powerful and its authority is too centralized.

GOP senators vowed to block the confirmation of any director until the whole agency was revamped.

Warren herself spurred such enmity from Senate Republicans, and Obama backed off his original plan to tap her as director, choosing former Ohio attorney general Richard Cordray instead.

That didn?t placate the GOP. They joined to filibuster Cordray. Brown?s was the sole Republican vote in Cordray?s favor. This wasn?t the puzzling part. Brown had long expressed support for the agency, saying it was needed to protect consumers.

The real head scratcher was Brown?s support of Obama installing Cordray at the helm of the agency in a recess appointment last week ? a move that seemed to infuriate almost every other Republican in Washington.

It?s one thing to support the agency, and even to back Cordray. It?s something else to back the president?s move to bypass Senate Republicans ? a move that will almost certainly be challenged in court, by the way.

It?s even more baffling considering that in 2010, Brown and two other GOP senators who supported the agency wrote Obama urging him not to use a recess appointment to install Cordray.

Is Brown?s newfound support a turnaround? A change of heart? A political flip-flop?

No one I talked to seemed to be sure. The move was clearly a political one, but the endgame is elusive.

Maybe Brown was trying to take a little bit of the wind out of Warren?s sails. Maybe Brown, who is trailing in the polls, is trying to beat Warren at her own game.

?Sen. Brown is in a really tough spot,? one GOP strategist told me.

?He?s a Republican trying to do his job here while running for re-election for Ted Kennedy?s seat in Massachusetts.?

True enough, but one thing I learned covering politics in the Bay State is that Massachusetts voters are very savvy. They don?t like random acts committed purely for the sake of political expediency.

Warren?s campaign declined to speculate on Brown?s motives.

Source: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1394393&srvc=rss

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