By Brad Tidwell
If there’s any overarching theme to be found from the Obama Administration’s last few years in office, it’s the “we can’t wait” theme. The Obama administration has never been long on patience, oversight or precedent when it comes in opposition to their plans.
One of the best examples of this has been the actions of the National Labor Relations Board. Since the United States Senate, for good reason, refused to confirm nominees for the NLRB, there has been a lack of quorum. Ordinarily, this would result in a lack of decisions coming from the board, but not so with the Obama Administration.
That the NLRB’s blatantly unconstitutional decisions are called into question is not a surprise. In the case of Noel Canning, the D.C. Circuit Court ruled that the NLRB’s decision was unconstitutional as the Board did not have a quorum. Unfortunately, since there has not been a higher level Supreme Court case, the NLRB is continuing to issue more rulings. Their argument has been that the Noel Canning decision only applied to that single NLRB ruling, rather than any other ruling decided without quorum.
What is surprising is that the NLRB’s justification for continuing to make these rulings is a blatant lie. Below is a letter that acting General Counsel Lafe Solomon wrote to Cablevision lawyer Eugene Scalia. Cablevision had asked for an emergency stay of NLRB proceedings, given the fact that the NLRB was invalid. This was Solomon’s reply:
NLRB’s Lafe Solomon Cablevision Denial Letter by Americans4LimitedGov
The Wall Street Journal’s Kimberly Strassel had this to say about Solomon’s response:
“The acting general counsel begins his letter by explaining that the legitimacy of the board is really neither here nor there. Why? Because Mr. Solomon was himself ‘appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate’—and therefore, apparently, is now sole and unchecked arbiter of all national labor policy.
“This is astonishing on many levels, the least of which is that it is untrue. Mr. Solomon is the acting general counsel precisely because the Senate has refused to confirm him since he was first nominated in June 2011. Nor will it, ever, given his Boeing escapades.
Not content with merely overstating the authority of the NLRB, Lafe Solomon is blatantly lying to Cablevision by claiming his own confirmation by the Senate. And the WSJ piece goes on to further expose Solomon’s audacity:
“The most revealing part of Mr. Solomon’s letter is the section cynically outlining why the NLRB continues to operate at a feverish pace. Mr. Solomon notes that this isn’t the first time the board has operated without a quorum.
“Mr. Solomon is in fact celebrating that of the 550 outfits harassed by an illegal, two-member board, only about 100 later decided they had the money, time and wherewithal to spend years relitigating in front of the labor goon squad. The NLRB is counting on the same outcome in Cablevision and other recent actions.
“The board will push through as many rulings and complaints against companies as it can before the Supreme Court rules on its legitimacy. And it will trust that the firms it has attacked and drained will be too weary to then try for reversals. This is why the Obama administration waited so long to petition the Supreme Court to reverse Noel Canning. The longer this process takes, the more damage the NLRB can inflict on behalf of its union taskmasters.”
The NLRB’s decisions will have wide-ranging impacts on the economy as they are implemented. Tilting the balance of power against employers makes it harder for them to create jobs in this economy.
This is a perfect encapsulation of the Obama administration’s audacity- refusing to acknowledge the authority of anything that contradicts their efforts. Here, Lafe Solomon proves he’s even willing to nakedly and verifiably lie about the actions of the U.S. Senate to make his point. Actions like this leave you wondering- what won’t the Obama Administration do to hold on to their power?
Brad Tidwell is the web editor for Americans for Limited Government.
