Opponents of President Obama’s recent recess appointments of members of the National Labor Relations Board are marshalling their forces.
First, there’s the National Right to Work Foundation’s lawsuit, filed in federal district court in Washington, D.C., which argues that since the Senate wasn’t actually in recess — members were meeting on a “pro forma” basis to continue this year’s session — Obama had no right to make the appointments on a unilateral basis.
Then comes two proposals in the House of Representatives. One, introduced by Rep. Jeff Landry (R-LA) and co-sponsored by 20 other Republicans, would gut the authority of not just the NLRB, but the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
The bill, H.R. 3770, would limit the powers of each board to operate if they’re headed by appointees who were recess-appointed when the Senate was technically in session, according to a story by Pete Kasperowicz on thehill.com.
The bill proposes: “No rule, order or other administrative action shall be considered final if the director was appointed during a recess of the Senate and the position of director was vacant while the Senate was in session, until the director has been confirmed by the Senate.”
In other House action, Rep. Diane Black (R-TN) put forward a resolution — H.Res. 509 — to condemn the recess appointments.
