Congressional Scorecard Update–Richard Griffin Confirmation

Yesterday, the Senate voted 55-44 to confirm Richard Griffin as the National Labor Relations Board general counsel, with Senator Lisa Murkowski as the sole Republican to vote to confirm Richard Griffin.

The near party-line vote on Richard Griffin’s confirmation is representative of the political divide in Congress today.

Griffin was one of President Obama’s recess appointments to the NLRB that several federal courts ruled were invalid, and the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to review. As a recess appointee, Griffin’s qualifications were never debated in the Senate nor was he properly vetted.

Now Griffin has been confirmed as the NLRB’s general counsel, and again circumvented Senate inquiries. Griffin was able to avoid debate over his confirmation because Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has moved for a cloture vote, which limits the debate on the nomination of Richard F. Griffin.

And there is good reason why Reid and the Obama administration has done this. Mr. Griffin has never had to publicly comment on being named in a federal complaint filed last October by 10 members of IUOE Local 501, which alleges Griffin was complicit in a cover-up of a scheme to embezzle funds from the local union.

This is just another example of the Senate’s Democratic leadership putting the interests of Big Labor over employees and employers, all while circumventing the democratic process of debating and vetting prospective nominations.

To see how your senator voted, see here.