Guess we don’t have to worry about the National Labor Relations Board having a quorum this year. President Obama announced that he’d be recess appointing three new members — and guess what? Democrats will still be in control.
As you might imagine, the announcement wasn’t exactly met with rejoicing in Republican circles. GOP officials maintain that the president can’t make any recess appointments because the Senate isn’t in recess — the upper chamber has been meeting in pro forma sessions every few days.
But the Obama administration maintains that the president has the power to make recess appointments whenever the Senate is “effectively” in recess. Meeting every few days without actually doing any actual work doesn’t count.
So the appointments are a go, at least for now. A look at the (proposed) new NLRB members:
Sharon Block is currently Deputy Assistant Secretary for Congressional Affairs at the Department of Labor. She previously served as Senior Labor and Employment Counsel for the Senate HELP Committee, where she worked for the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA).
She was senior attorney for NLRB Chairman Robert Battista from 2003 to 2006 and served as an attorney in the appellate court branch from 1996 to 2003. From 1994 to 1996, she was Assistant General Counsel at the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Terence F. Flynn has been serving as Chief Counsel to NLRB Board Member Brian Hayes. Flynn was previously Chief Counsel to former NLRB Board Member Peter Schaumber. From 1996 to 2003, Mr. Flynn was Counsel in the Labor and Employment Group of Crowell & Moring, LLP, where he handled a wide range of labor and employment issues, including collective bargaining negotiations, litigation of unfair labor practices, defense of ERISA claims, and wage and hour disputes, among other matters.
Richard Griffin is General Counsel for International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE). He also serves on the board of directors for the AFL-CIO Lawyers Coordinating Committee, a position he has held since 1994.
Block and Griffin are Democrats; Flynn is a Republican.
A 2010 Supreme Court decision decreed that the NLRB cannot hand down formal decisions without at least three sitting members. When Craig Becker — another recess appointment — stepped down on Jan. 3 of this year, the board lost its required forum.
