by Anne Marie Lofaso, Associate Dean for Faculty Research & Development, Professor of Law, West Virginia University College of Law
The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee will hold hearings tomorrow on President Obama’s five nominees to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB or Board). So why, when there are so many vitally important issues facing our country – the enormous budget deficit and sequester being only two of those issues – is the Senate spending its time on the confirmation of five public servants?
Since the 1947 Taft-Hartley amendments, the Board has been comprised of five members, appointed by the president with the advice and consent of the Senate. For years, Senate Democrats and Republicans held to a gentlemen’s agreement that the president would select three Board members from the majority party and two Board members from the minority party. Over the years, these nominations became increasingly more political, with administrative decisions predictably oscillating between pro-business and pro-labor-enforcement results, depending on which party held control of the Executive Branch.
In an administrative agency that tends to make law by adjudication rather than rulemaking, this back-and-forth between reasonable interpretations of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA or Act) is both lawful and par for the course. Those in power are privileged to re-interpret the statute that they are charged by Congress with administering so long as the following conditions are met: (1) a case comes along that raises the issue; (2) their statutory interpretation is reasonable and permissible/constitutional; and (3) they give reasons for changing their mind.
other senators in filing a “friend of the court brief in support of the federal legal challenges to President Obama’s recess appointments of Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and three selections to the National Labor Relations Board. On Friday the senators 