On Saturday, the Senate closed off what was supposed to be its last day of business for the year (the Senate may need to reconvene, now that Speaker John Boehner has blown up a deal to extend tax cuts to middle class Americans). Yet the Senate closed out the year without confirming any of the 21 judicial nominees currently awaiting a vote on the Senate floor. Worse, according to the Senate’s chief obstructionist, these judicial nominees — along with more than two dozen other nominations — are intentionally being held hostage in order to prevent President Obama from recess appointing anyone to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau:

At the end of a rare Saturday session, the Senate’s last day of official business for the year, McConnell blocked an effort by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to confirm more than 50 executive and judicial branch nominations awaiting Senate action.

And he laid out a condition to releasing his objection: “confirmation from the administration that it will respect practice and precedent on recess appointments.”

McConnell added that he needed from the White House “assurances that have been routinely given at this point with regard to recess appointments.”

It’s unclear just what “practice or precedent” McConnell is referring to, but there is no one who has less standing to complain about unprecedented action than McConnell himself — the lead architect of the Senate GOP’s nihilistic campaign to make it impossible for President Obama to govern. Without an agency head in place, the CFPB cannot perform many of its core functions. Yet, Senate Republicans are filibustering CFPB director-in-waiting Richard Cordray in order to sabotage this newly created consumer protection agency. If McConnell really cares one bit about respecting “practice and precedent,” he can show it by ending this blockade and recognizing that the Senate minority does not have the legitimate authority to effectively repeal an entire agency.

McConnell could also show that he respects practice and precedent by returning the Senate to the way it operated before he became minority leader. Simply put, no one in recent American history has done more to abuse the filibuster than Mitch McConnell — as demonstrated by the massive spike in votes attempting to break filibusters once McConnell took over the minority caucus:

President Obama is not powerless, however, against McConnell’s effort to sabotage the CFPB. If McConnell will not end his blockade, Obama can invoke the Roosevelt Precedent, which allows him to appoint Cordray the second the Senate adjourns for the year.

Earlier today, 53 percent of the Senate voted to move forward with Richard Cordray’s nomination to lead the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — depriving him of the supermajority he needs in order to be confirmed. One of the senators joining this filibuster, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), was uncharacteristically candid about why he helped build this wall of obstruction — he simply wants to sabotage the agency:

I have met Mr. Cordray, and my decision to oppose his confirmation by the Senate has nothing to do with his qualifications. Rather, I feel it is my duty to oppose his confirmation as part of my opposition to the creation of CFPB itself. [...] Confirming any director for this bureau would be tantamount to agreeing that we need a uniquely powerful super-agency that is not even designed to prevent a repeat of the financial crisis. Until the CFPB is reformed, I will not support it in any way.

Simply put, this is nothing less than a direct assault on the rule of law. The CFPB was created by an Act of Congress and can only be repealed or modified by an Act of Congress. By his own admission, Lee’s filibuster is an attempt to make an end run around the Constitution’s legitimate lawmaking process.

But, of course, this filibuster is also just one more example of the Tea Party senator’s nihilistic approach to governance. Lee believes that federal child labor laws, FEMA, food stamps, the FDA, Medicaid, income assistance for the poor, and even Medicare and Social Security violate the Constitution. He not only sponsored a radical constitutional amendment that would force the United States to adopt Tea Party fiscal policy forever, he then openly admitted that he was using last summer’s debt ceiling crisis to extort the rest of the Congress into passing his amendment.

Fortunately, President Obama does not need to allow Lee’s nihilism to shut down an essential check on Wall Street’s excesses. When the Senate adjourns for the year, Obama should immediately invoke the Roosevelt Precedent and recess appoint Cordary.

Last year, Congress enacted a law creating a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to protect ordinary Americans from some of Wall Street and the banking industry’s worst abuses, and the Senate is expected to vote on CFPB Director-in-waiting Richard Cordray’s nomination this Thursday. Nearly every Senate Republican, however, signed a letter pledging to sabotage this agency by refusing to confirm anyone to lead it. And congressional Republicans manipulated the Senate’s calendar in a way that they claim — falsely — strips President Obama of his power to make recess appointments.

Should the Senate GOP keep its promise to filibuster Cordray, however, President Obama will soon have an airtight opportunity to recess appoint him to lead this essential agency. All that Obama needs to do is invoke the Roosevelt Precedent:

[T]his winter, Congress must adjourn — at least briefly — to inaugurate the new session of Congress. Theodore Roosevelt used such a brief intersession adjournment to ram through an appointment during his administration. From a congressional report on recess appointments:

Although President Theodore Roosevelt once made recess appointments during an intersession recess of less than one day, the shortest recess during which appointments have been made during the past 20 years was 10 days. Appointments made during short recesses (less than 30 days) have sometimes aroused controversy, and they may involve a political cost for the president.

Such an appointment would not be without political controversy — but would likely be upheld as legal given the Roosevelt precedent.

Each day the Senate GOP gets away with its unprecedented obstructionism makes a mockery of the rule of law. The CFPB was created by an Act of Congress, and it cannot be repealed except through an intervening law — not by kneejerk obstructionism by the minority party in the Senate. The Senate GOP’s nihilistic tactics require Obama to use all constitutional tools at his disposal to ensure that the law actually means something, and that includes invoking the Roosevelt Precedent if necessary.

Simply put, it’s time for President Obama to speak softly, and carry a big stick.