Unfortunately, Elections Have Consequences

Today’s Washington Examiner posted an opinion piece on the recess appointment of Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board.  Mr. Becker is the former associate general counsel for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and has represented the AFL-CIO in court. 

Some of his ideas include not allowing management to attend hearings on labor management disbutes at the NLRB.  He also favors ‘card check’, which removes the secret ballot from elections where workers vote on whether or not to unionize a company. 

According to the article:

“…last month Becker’s nomination fell eight votes short of the 60 needed to defeat a threatened Republican filibuster in the Senate, which left a recess appointment as the only way Obama could get his man on the NLRB.”

This vote shows that not even all the Democrats were in favor of this nomination.  The Democrats who voted against cloture were Blanche Lincoln, and Ben Nelson.  Both are facing tough races to retain their House seats in November.  Democrats who did not vote were Mary Landrieu, Robert Byrd, Daniel Inouye, and Mark Pryor.

The article also points out that SEIU President Andy Stern and the union’s chief lobbyist are the two most frequent visitors to the White House.  I am not opposed to labor unions.  I am opposed to having labor unions wield a disproportional amount of power in our government.