This Week in Congress

Members of the House of Representatives have gone home for, "fact finding missions," with some of these missions occurring overseas.

Sadly, the Senate remains in session. After last week's ObamaCare debacle, the Senate continues to work behind the scenes on an ObamaCare fix.

The Senate hoped to be working on the National Defense Authorization Act this week, but Senator Rand Paul is blocking consideration of the NDAA until he is certain that he will be able to offer amendments to the bill, including ones dealing with indefinite detention of US citizens, and repealing the 2001 authorization of force.

The 2001 authorization of force was a limited grant of authority to go after the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks. It has since been used to justify military actions that had nothing to do with 9-11.

The Senate will mostly be voting on nominations this week, including the nomination of Marvin Kaplan to the National Labor Relations Board. Campaign for Liberty cosigned a letter in support of the nomination. Although we favor elimination of the NLRB, we recognize the danger of allowing the board to operate with a pro-union boss majority.

July 13, 2017

Dear Senators:

The undersigned organizations urge the Senate to confirm Marvin Kaplan and William Emanuel to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Filling the vacant seats at the NLRB is imperative to returning the agency to a body of impartial members that represent the public interest in labor disputes.

For the past eight years, the Board failed to act fairly and in the interests of the American people. It is crucial to fill the vacant seats to restore many of the longstanding pro-worker-freedom policies that were upended by the excessively pro-union Obama NLRB.

NLRB policy oscillates due to the agency’s structure, with the partisan balance shifting alongside control of the Executive Branch. However, during the Obama administration, the NLRB took partisanship to new heights, overturning decades of Board precedent in order to aid labor unions’ organizing efforts.

Filling the vacant seats on the Board will enable the agency to take up desperately needed reform—and repeal of harmful rules.

One harmful rule resulted from the NLRB’s 2015 decision in Browning-Ferris Industries, which expanded the conditions under which one employer can be held jointly liable for another employer’s bargaining responsibilities and labor law violations. This greatly increased the liability faced by companies that contract with other businesses, even if they exert no direct control over the other businesses’ employees. The new joint employer standard could result in 1.7 million fewer jobs, according to an American Action Forum analysis. In addition, the decision could deter large companies from contracting with small businesses.

Another policy in need of repeal is the NLRB’s “ambush election” rule, which limited debate regarding the pros and cons of unionization by minimizing the time workers have to educate themselves on union representation, sometimes to as little as nine days. The rule also threatens worker privacy. It requires employers to hand over workers’ private information—including telephone numbers, email addresses, and work schedules—to union organizers, with no ability to opt out.

We fully support swiftly confirming Mr. Kaplan and Mr. Emanuel to bring common sense back to national labor relations policy.

Sincerely,

Iain Murray
Competitive Enterprise Institute

Lisa B. Nelson
ALEC Action

Grover Norquist
Americans for Tax Reform

Phil Kerpen
American Commitment

Andrew F. Quinlan
President, Center for Freedom and Prosperity

Timothy Lee
Center for Individual Freedom

Matt Patterson
Center for Worker Freedom

Norm Singleton
Campaign for Liberty

Jason Pye
FreedomWorks

Mario H. Lopez
President, Hispanic Leadership Council

The Senate may also consider legislation overturning the Consumer Financial Protection Board's arbitration rule that I wrote about last week.

Before leaving for August break, the Senate is expected to vote on the FDA user fee bill.  This bill contains the provision allowing Americans to obtain hearing aids without getting permission from  a government-licensed dispenser.

Campaign for Liberty has learned that Wyoming Senator Mike Enzi, Texas Senator John Cornyn, and Iowa Senator Charles Grassley may be instrumental in the outcome of this debate.

According to our sources, all three are listening to Campaign for Liberty members who have contacted them about this issue. However, all three have a history of supporting federal regulations that benefit special interests, so Campaign for Liberty members who live in Wyoming, Texas, and Iowa should call their Senators and tell them to stand with Americans with hearing problems and not with the special interests:

Cornyn 202-224-2954

Enzi 202-224-3424

Grassley 202-224-3724

Tags: Congress