The Republican fold in the House Committee on Education and The Workforce, in a continuing attempt to defeat the January recess appointments of three members to the NLRB, had a nerve racking hearing at the Rayburn House Office Building on February 7th that gave testifiers a chance to state their own judgment on whether the President stepped over a constitutional line and upset the checks and balances set up for appointments by planning ahead and successfully using a break between the Senate's pro forma sessions to put leaders on union rights on the Board. Committee member Susan Davis (D-San Diego) heard that either the doubts on constitutionality will make the authority of board decisions uncertain or a board without the members for a quorom will make deciding cases uncertain.
The committee chair, John Kline, shortly after the appointments, requested documents from the President's counsel and board chairman Mark Pearce to take the opportunity to go into details on both the claim of unconstitutionality and the new board members "acitvist" labor agendas. Last year's decision to restrict access to the secret ballot and a proposal to reform the union election rules and "limit" employer free speech during elections, together, would close off a legislatve opportunity to pass the Republican pro-employer and worker free choice union reform agenda in both houses of Congress.
Obama's appointments can not be undone unless Kline's team of examiners and lawyers win a big constitutional fight.
Making do with two members certainly was a possiblity the Democratic leaderhip was willing to take irregular steps to avoid. One of the testifiers at the hearing asked the committee to consider the importance of not sacrificing the policy of making precendent setting decisons with only a five member board by invalidating the appointments.
Kline gives Obama the credit for burdening employers with the his Board's rules. Job creation is already held back, he said, and, the new members have "job destroying" agendas.
Davis supports, she says, an even playing field in politics that gives both corporations and labor unions an opportunity to compete for political officholders on equal terms. She has not been one to deny the unions their traditional rights.
After all the details and testimony are looked over carefully, committee Democrats, Susan Davis among them, will have to deliberate and make a judgment on the alleged injustice of putting the NRLB experienced lawyers, Terence F. Flynn, Sharon Block and Richard Griffin, in the board seats. Can they be finally instated by the Board?
At the present time, the new members are in the doorway. The Republican majority in the committee has not much time left to spoil the President's NLRB plans, without any results from a full public examination during hearings that reveal defects in the appointments.
This is an On The Watch Take.
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