Pendley's illegal power play
Thursday, August 20, 2020
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Recognize this guy? Not only was William Perry Pendley's nomination to head the BLM pulled this week, but he also signed the document that keeps him in power | Bureau of Land Management
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A new document acquired by the Associated Press shows that acting Bureau of Land Management (BLM) head and anti-public lands extremist William Perry Pendley signed the succession order that made his own position the agency's default leadership post, a method of keeping him in power that legal experts have concluded is very likely illegal.
Pendley, who has effectively led the BLM for far longer than the 210 days allowed under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, was recently nominated to head the agency by President Trump. It was the administration's first nomination to the agency in 4 years, and Interior faces two lawsuits from Pendley's extended stint. However, within weeks of the announcement, his nomination was withdrawn after it became clear that the Senate would have overwhelmingly rejected him due to his history of calling for the sale of public lands and overt racism. Nevertheless, Interior Secretary David Bernhardt intends to rely on a highly questionable succession order to keep Pendley in place as de facto director of the agency.
Legal experts from around the country have confirmed that the recently uncovered succession order is dubious and may violate the Constitution. Pendley was the one who wrote and signed the order that gives himself the authority to act as director indefinitely. “It is the ultimate in bootstrapping because Pendley, who is in my view not serving legally in this job, is naming himself at the top in the order of succession,” said Nina Mendelson, a professor of law at the University of Michigan and an expert on administrative law.
Difficulties in acquiring succession orders also raise questions about the orders even existing in the first place: the National Park Service FOIA office stated that they had no responsive records for a similar succession order, and a FOIA request for Pendley's succession order is still pending. “I find it highly unlikely that the National Park Service wouldn't just have those documents,” said Anne Weismann, chief FOIA council with Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. "It’s just not credible." The order now shows that it was signed just days before Bernhardt announced that a department succession order allowed Pendley to remain in charge indefinitely.
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Congress didn't intend for top positions at major agencies to go unfilled for years. When do stop-gaps go too far?”
—Anne Joseph O'Connell, Stanford Law Professor
on William Perry Pendley, The Hill |
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