Posted on 07/30/2013 4:14:06 PM PDT by onyx
After a contentious fight over some of President Obama’s nominees, the Senate confirmed five members to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
On Tuesday, the Senate voted to clear all five nominees — Harry Johnson III, Philip Miscimarra, Nancy Schiffer, Kent Hirozawa and Mark Pearce.
Republicans agreed to hold up-or-down votes on the NLRB nominees as part of a deal to avoid Senate rule changes limiting the minority's right to filibuster executive branch nominations. Two of the NLRB nominees confirmed were GOP picks — Johnson and Miscimarra — and Schiffer, Hirozawa and Pearce were Obama's nominees.
As part of the deal, Obama had to withdraw the nominations of Sharon Block and Richard Griffin to the NLRB. Block and Griffin were recess appointments to the labor board, but their appointments were ruled unconstitutional in federal court and drew fierce opposition from Republicans.
“Because of the bipartisan deal that was reached on the president’s nominees, it looks like we finally have a path forward to fully confirm the National Labor Relations Board,” Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) said ahead of the votes. “It will be the first time in over a decade that this has happened. … It is long past time to put the board back in business and tone down the rhetoric.”
Democrats wanted to ensure vacancies on the board were filled before the August recess because on Aug. 27, Pearce’s term as NLRB chairman was set to end, meaning the board wouldn’t have had a quorum to rule on decisions.
On Tuesday, Hirozawa and Schiffer were confirmed on 54-44 votes, Pearce was reconfirmed on a 59-38 vote, Johnson and Miscimarra were confirmed on voice-vote.
The NLRB settles labor disputes within the United States for businesses and protects workers’ rights.
“This board is an important safeguard for workers in America — regardless of whether the employees are union or non-union,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said. “Without the work of the NLRB, employees who have been cheated and treated unfairly would have no entity to address the wrongs.”
Schiffer was a former associate general counsel to the AFL-CIO, and Hirozawa served as chief counsel to Pearce before being nominated.
Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said he wouldn’t vote to confirm Hirozawa or Schiffe because he was afraid the nominees would be biased in favor of unions.
“Fairness and impartiality is what I look for in an NLRB nominee,” Alexander said Tuesday. “Two of those nominees do not meet that standard.”
The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee voted 13-9 to advance the nominations of Schiffe and Hirozawa last week — the committee cleared the other three in May.
"Compromise" is a such wonderful thing....so sophisticated, so civilized, so American.
Leni
It went away with their spines...
The House GOP is as conservative as it has ever been in two generations. As conservatives we have to remember to gain what is possible, while keeping our eye fixed on the higher goal.
Politics is all about compromise. The most important thing to me is that we’re moving in the right direction despite a militant hard left Democratic controlled Senate and a radical communist pro-MB White House.
We’re going pretty good considering we only have 1/3 of the federal power and they have mass media, government schooling, the entire federal bureaucracy and every crony capitalist on their side.
I believe the real revolution is already underway, but it is in the states. Once the change comes it will be obvious, but GOP governors on the state level are really changing things. It’s why the Dems are pushing for amnesty and attacking Southern states on voting rights. They know their goose is cooked.
Where?
Adolf would have loved these goons, IMO.
“Might as well put sj lee in at DHS”
If it will get her fat stupid a$$ out of Texas, OK.
The value of this escapes me... rather than 'put the board back in business' why not defund it and put it OUT of business! OR - leave it without a quorum to rule... This is nothing but an organ of the communist autocracy... telling Boeing Space that they could not open a plant in S. Car. because it is a non-union state - with no Constitutional authority whatsoever. No what authority?
:-)!
The following material as it relates to this thread has been previously posted concerning related issues in other threads. I’m reposting it in case some freepers haven’t seen it.
The there are major constitutional problems with the NLRB imo. More specifically, not only have the states never delegated to Congress, via the Constitution, the specific power to regulate labor, but even if the states had done so please consider the following.
The Founding States had made the Constitution’s Sections 1-3 of Article I to clarify that all federal legislative powers are vested in the elected members of Congress. So Congress has a constitutional monopoly on federal legislative powers whether it wants it not imo. So even if the states had delegated to Congress the specific power to regulate labor, Congress has no business delegating such powers to nonelected bureaucrats. By doing so Congress is wrongly protecting federal legislative powers from the wrath of the voters.
Again, the states have never delegated to Congress, via the Constitution, the specific power to regulate labor issues.
So where exactly did the Dems compromise here? Withdrawing illegal appointments? WOW. What a defeat.
Where exactly has this “most conservative House in two generations” engaged Obama directly on these scandals? They simply haven’t. How long are you planning on waiting for action?
Your mistake is believing the beltway GOP leadership has the same “higher goals” as we do. As Ryan and Rubio are currently showing, they don’t.
You seem to be ok with a corporatist accommodating GOP pimping out Main Street for campaign payola. I am not. To each his own.
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