NLRB overreach: Disregard for the Constitution edition

University of Chicago

President Obama, our onetime University of Chicago lecturer on--or was it against?--constitutional law, has a disregard for it, as Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), writes in Investors Business Daily. He's referring to those illegal recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board.

Despite these facts, the president claimed the unilateral authority to declare the Senate is in recess for purposes of recess appointments. The president's disregard for the Constitution was an affront to the American people.

American voters rely on elected officials to abide by the system of government our Founders established for the preservation of freedom. Elected officials are not allowed to make up their own rules as they go along.

Unfortunately, these appointments continue the pattern of this president bypassing Congress and exerting executive power past constitutional and customary limits. For example, when his cap-and-trade legislation failed to pass Congress, he had the Environmental Protection Agency issue equivalent regulations instead.

When Congress refused to enact the president's "card check" legislation doing away with secret ballots in union elections, the president's National Labor Relations Board imposed the change by administrative decree.

Rep. Tim Scott (R-SC), along with Sen. Orrin Hatch, wants to bring fairness to the workplace. Writing for Roll Call, Scott lays out his case:

To combat these uneven rules, I have introduced the Employee Rights Act in the House, with Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) sponsoring the Senate version. This is not an anti-union bill but simply a mechanism to ensure all workers have the ability to make their voices and opinions heard.

The Employee Rights Act would require every unionized workplace to hold a secret ballot election every three years to confirm its employees want to remain unionized. It would also require a secret ballot election to be approved by a majority of members before leaders can order a strike and guarantee all members personally approve of how their union dues are being spent politically.

Additionally, the Employee Rights Act will require at least 40 days for union election certification. Employees deserve more than 10 days to have their future, and the future of prospective employees, decided.

Let me be clear — if someone wants to join a union, that is their right. I am not trying to take that away. What I am doing is calling attention to some startling numbers, such as that only 10 percent of current union employees have voted to unionize in their workplace. And while recent polls show union members are split almost evenly between Democrat and Republican, 93 percent of union contributions are made to Democratic candidates.

Will Ohio become our 24th right-to-work state? It could happen. From the Toledo Blade:

The question has not yet made it on Ohio's ballot, but 54 percent of registered voters say they like the idea of making Ohio the next "right-to-work" state, according to a Quinnipiac Poll released Tuesday.

Ohio Democratic lawmakers vehemently oppose right to work, and Gov. John Kasich and other Republican leaders are skittish about supporting such a move after the shellacking they took in November against Senate Bill 5 — the GOP-passed bill restricting collective bargaining.

But some of the same people who were behind last year’s successful Ohio vote against President Obama’s health-care reforms are now pursuing another constitutional amendment to prevent Ohioans from being forced to pay “fair share” or other fees to help support workplace unions they refuse to join.

"Given the assumption that the S.B. 5 referendum was a demonstration of union strength in Ohio, the 54 to 40 percent support for making Ohio a 'right-to-work' state does make one take notice," said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

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