A top labor watchdog is telling Senate Republicans to take their time reviewing President Barack Obama’s new appointment to the nation’s top labor arbiter.
The White House withdrew controversial National Labor Relations Board nominee Sharon Block on Wednesday and replaced her with Lauren McFerran, chief labor counsel for the Senate Health, Education, Labor, & Pensions Committee, on Wednesday.
Block faced intense GOP opposition, indicating that Obama will try to push through his new nominee during lame duck session to avoid dealing with a GOP-controlled Senate.
Semmens said the Senate should not rush McFerran’s appointment through the confirmation process just to satisfy the administration’s goal of stocking the bureaucracy with partisan nominees.
"The Senate must not attempt to ram this nomination through during the lame duck session, and must instead give her nomination a thorough vetting when the newly elected Senators can take part in the process," he said.
The Supreme Court found that Obama violated the Constitution when he recess appointed Block and fellow labor lawyer Richard Griffin to the NLRB in January 2012. Block and Griffin ignored a flurry of lower court rulings that declared their appointments illegal and continued to issue rulings while the issue headed to the Supreme Court.
President Obama withdrew Block and Griffin’s appointments in July 2013 as part of the nuclear option deal, but both soon found their ways back into the administration. Obama tapped Griffin to serve as the board’s chief enforcement officer within two months of the deal. Obama re-nominated Block to serve as a full board member in July.
Sen. Lamar Alexander (R., Tenn.), who is expected to take control of the HELP committee in January 2015, publicly opposed Block’s re-nomination at a September committee hearing. He said that the re-nomination demonstrated Block and Obama’s "troubling lack of respect for the Constitution and the separation of powers," according to the Hill. She cleared the committee on a party line vote with only Alaska GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski supporting her.
Semmens does not want to see a repeat of the 2013 NLRB appointments. The GOP centered its opposition to Block and Griffin on how they were appointed, rather than what they represented. When Block and Griffin withdrew, President Obama invited AFL-CIO chief Richard Trumka to the White House to pick new nominees. Republicans approved of the hand-picked nominees, despite the fact that they only had one day to vet them.
Semmens said McFerran has demonstrated the same type of pro-labor ideology that has led the agency to serving as "the litigation arm of the union" during the Obama administration.
"Unfortunately, what we know of Lauren McFerran's record indicates she is likely to be just as committed as Block would have been to promoting union boss powers over the rights of employees who don't want to be part of a union," he said.