ACSBlog

by Johnda Bentley, Assistant General Counsel, Service Employees International Union (SEIU)

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is the agency that protects the rights of private sector employees to join together to improve their wages and working conditions. Until the Senate confirms President Obama’s nominees to the NLRB, employees’ rights and our economy are at risk.

The NLRB stopped functioning properly in late January when the D.C. Circuit invalidated the recess appointments of two of the three current Board members in Noel Canning. With only one valid member appointed, the court concluded, the Board had lost quorum. Since this ruling, employers have challenged the agency’s authority at every level.

The validity of the recess appointments is unclear. The issue is pending before several other circuit courts, and Noel Canning was appealed to the Supreme Court. However, assuming the Supreme Court grants review, a decision is unlikely before next year. 

Following Noel Canning, President Obama re-nominated the two recess appointees, both Democrats. And in April, the president made three more nominations, includingtwo Republicans and the current Chairman, a Democrat. The Chairman’s current term will expire on August 27, 2013, unmistakably leaving the Board without a quorum if there are no appointments before that time. If Senate confirms all nominees, there will be a full, five-member Board. 

In the meantime, the Board continues to issue decisions with the recess appointees, but unfair labor practices largely remain unremedied. This is because orders of the NLRB must be enforced by circuit courts, and all parties have the option to appeal to the D.C. Circuit. 

by Jeremy Leaming

It seems whenever given the opportunity to weaken the judiciary, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) runs with it and in the process spreads lots of misinformation about the federal courts.

Grassley, who has helped his Republican colleagues in the Senate block or slow-walk President Obama’s judicial nominees, has called for cutting the number of judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, discussed here.

Now as the Senate Judiciary Committee begins consideration of the bipartisan comprehensive immigration bill, S. 744, the Ranking Member Grassley has offered 77 amendments to the legislation. Among them is one, dubbed Grassley17, which would isolate immigration court rulings from federal court review. As it stands now, the bill provides for some judicial review. For example, individuals denied citizenship could seek review in a district court or court of appeals pursuant to the Administrative Procedures Act.

But Grassley’s effort to alter the comprehensive immigration measure would close the door to federal courts, except for one – in Washington, D.C. and only for review of constitutional challenges. Thus if immigration judges improperly deny or revoke citizenship, their actions will largely go unchallenged.

Not only is Grassley’s effort an affront to judicial review, it is, let’s be honest, a part of a wider attempt to greatly slow or scuttle immigration reform. S. 744 is a rather large bill and far from perfect. It includes stringent enforcement provisions including billions of dollars for the Department of Homeland Security to spend on border enforcement. It also requires undocumented immigrants to wait at least 10 years until they can apply for legal residence and another three years until naturalization, according to The New York Times.

But senators have offered more than 300 amendments to the immigration reform bill. Seth Freed Wessler of ColorLines says the Republican amendments “would largely gut the promise of a path to citizenship and impose nearly unachievable benchmarks for border security.” Nonetheless Wessler notes Democrats control the committee and are thus likely to hold off many of the amendments. Wessler though notes some of Grassley’s other amendments, such as one that would strike language aimed at protecting “immigrants from being deported because” of anti-immigrant laws, such as the one enacted by Arizona.