Craig Becker, the labor lawyer for the ACLU and SEIU was recess appointed by President Obama this morning. On the face this is merely a throw back to Labor for dealing with the Excise tax and for fighting so hard to get HCR passed.
Obama and the Importance of Craig Becker's Appointment
However, not only do I think this is important but it's significance cannot be understated. This is a Fist Punch at John McCain and Mitch McConnell. Chai Feldblum's appointment also fits in this category. As TNR notes, there was an agreement between the WH and the Republicans to get all of these picks passed as a package agreement to the NLRB.
They included two democrats and one republican, Sen. Enzi's aide. The package would be passed together. Unfortunately, one senator gummed up the works. Guess who?
When the nominations came before the committee last October, Enzi and Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski joined Democrats to send the slate to the Senate floor by a vote of 15-8. That should have been the end of it, but John McCain--who is facing a tough primary battle this year against a far-right conservative and has been eager to burnish his conservative credentials--decided to put a hold on the nomination. With the Senate needing 60 votes to break McCain’s hold and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid failing to play tough on Becker’s behalf, the nomination died when Congress recessed at Christmas. Then, when it returned in January, Obama, to his credit, renominated Becker and reached an agreement with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to remove the hold on his nomination.
Instead of holding his party together, Mitch McConnell lets them play along. The Chamber of Commerce Jumps in and the Republicans pull all the stops to stop the nomination. Basically the agreement is broken.
What happened next says a lot about the sorry state of politics in Washington. At the insistence of Republicans on the committee and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has made defeating Becker a top priority, HELP held another hearing on the nomination. Republicans submitted a list of over 400 questions for Becker to answer--more than had been asked of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. In his responses, Becker dealt satisfactorily with the principal charge against him--that he would use the NLRB to administratively enact the Employee Free Choice Act. (The measure, which labor has been unable to get through Congress, would make it easier for unions to organize workplaces.) Becker said explicitly that he would not.
Yet this time, when the committee voted, Enzi and Murkowski both opposed him, and both backed a subsequent filibuster against him. Enzi lamely explained his vote, citing, among other things, Becker’s willingness to require employers to provide unions that win the right to hold elections with contact information for employees--a requirement that the board has previously upheld. The motion on cloture, which took place during a snowstorm that kept members out of Washington, still got 52 votes compared to only 33 in favor of maintaining the filibuster; but it was not enough for Becker’s nomination to proceed to the floor.
To those wondering why Chai Feldblum and Craig Becker were appointed, it has to do with the fact that they were part of package deals that Mitch McConnell, John McCain and the other republicans screwed up. This would also explain why Dawn Johnsen wasn't appointed. This was a bigger warning shot at Mitch McConnell to keep his party in line and to insure that they keep with the nominations. Remember, what's interesting about these recess appointments are that Republicans were not part of it. None of the Republican nods went through. Which means there's a 3-1 advantage on the NLRB for Dems.