Marathon Pundit: NLRB ovrreach: Congressional Review Act edition

Friday, March 02, 2012

NLRB ovrreach: Congressional Review Act edition

Wyoming's Black Hills

Sen. Mike Enzi of Wyoming is fighting National Labor Relations Board overreach, particularly "ambush" elections and the proposal allowing the surrendering of employee personal contact information to union bosses.

The final two overreach posts come from the late Andrew Breitbart's Big Government. He was a fierce opponent of Big Labor. Rest in peace, general.

From a Phil Kerpen op-ed in Fox News:

Fortunately, every United States senator will soon have an opportunity to overturn the NLRB's ambush election rule and by implication to stand up to the NLRB's whole anti-growth, anti-worker agenda to reward union bosses. That's because Senator Mike Enzi R-Wyo. has brought a resolution under the Congressional Review Act, which creates a special procedure under which a petition from 30 senators can force an up-or-down floor vote on overturning a federal regulation that cannot be filibustered.

The Enzi Resolution, (S.J. Res 36), which would simply overturn the ambush elections rule, has 43 cosponsors – more than enough to force a floor vote.

Marathon Pundit and Breitbart

The cosponsors include every Senate Republican other than Lisa Murkowski R-Alaska, Scott Brown R-Mass., and Mark Kirk R-Ill. Kirk is incapacitated; it's unclear what excuse Murkowski and Brown have. While no Democrats have yet cosponsored the Enzi Resolution, there are 11 senators from right-to-work state who should be inclined to stand up to an NLRB that appears determined to undermine the right to work.

Senate leadership has elevated doing nothing to an art form, refusing to pass a budget for years and allowing dozens of House-passed jobs bills to languish. On the Enzi Resolution we will soon have a rare meaningful vote in the U.S. Senate on an issue critical to economic growth and worker rights. Citizens should watch it closely and hold their senators accountable.

The Workforce Fairness Institute sent a letter to key members of Congress about the Congressional Review Act.

President Obama's illegal recess appointments are being challenged in New York City. From Bloomberg:

A court petition seeking to halt a lockout of 70 workers at a Brooklyn, New York, apartment complex should be thrown out, a lawyer told the judge in the case, which may test whether President Barack Obama's January appointments to the National Labor Relations Board are legal.

The petition isn't valid because the board that voted to file it lacked a quorum, the landlord's lawyer, Paul D. Clement, told U.S. District Judge Brian M. Cogan at the hearing today in Brooklyn.

Obama appointed three members to the board on Jan. 4, bypassing the Senate by asserting lawmakers were in recess and unable to act on nominations. A president is permitted to make appointments without Senate confirmation during a recess, though Republicans dispute that was the case at the time.

“We've never had an attempted recess appointment like this," said Clement, who was solicitor general and acting attorney general under President George W. Bush.

There is pushback against Big Labor in of all places, Michigan.

Ann Arbor, Michigan

From the Detroit Free Press:

Michigan's Republican Party landed what appears to be a knock-out blow today, dimming the hopes of those pushing to allow the University of Michigan's 2,200 graduate student research assistants to unionize.

The state House, on a 62-45 vote, passed a bill explicitly banning the GSRAs from being labeled as public employees, which would have made them eligible to form a union. The state Senate passed the bill last week.

Gov. Rick Snyder is likely to sign the bill when it reaches his desk, a spokeswoman said.