BACK TO POLITICS AS USUAL
BY JULIANNE MALVEAUX
I wish I had Ari Fleishman’s speechwriter. The White House spokesman was a
fountain of alliteration in a press conference where he pushed the Senate to
act on some of the 157 administration nominations that are awaiting
confirmation. This is about “people, not partisanship,” Fleishman said,
“progress, not payback”. Actually, from where I sit it is about sounding
good and saying nothing. The White House is especially incensed that Eugene
Scalia, a conservative labor attorney and son of US Supreme Court Justice
Antonin Scalia hasn’t been confirmed and, according to Senate Majority Leader
Tom Daschle, isn’t likely to be.
Bush has nominated Scalia to be Solicitor General at the US Department
of Labor, but it is a bad joke to place this anti-labor lawyer in the third
most important job at Labor, and to expect him to be an advocate for workers.
Indeed, Mr. Scalia has been a vocal opponent of President Clinton’s efforts
to address repetitive motion injuries. Democrats and union leaders say that
if Scalia goes to the Labor Department, he could undermine a whole range of
worker protections. Indeed, because the Solicitor General has a role in
every policy decision of the labor department, along with every legislative,
regulator and enforcement initiative of the department, Scalia can harm
workers simply by deciding to ignore certain policies. “Scalia’s extreme
views make clear that he does not believe in enforcement of the nation’s job
safety and health laws,” said Edwin D. Hill, president of the International
Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. “That makes him totally unsuitable for the
job—and we intend to make that clear to every senator.” Granted, Mr. Scalia’s
philosophy is consistent with Mr. Bush’s, but with workers under attack right
now, it seems a special insult to place such an anti-worker lawyer in the
chief legal role at the Labor Department.
Senate Labor Committee Chairman Edward Kennedy (D-Massachusetts) says
that he thinks Scalia’s views are outside the mainstream on worker rights
issues. “Mr. Scalia has argued that union workplaces should be exempted from
certain workplace laws, such as regular Occupational Safety and Health
Administration inspections and the overtime requirements of the Fair Labor
Standards Act,” Kennedy said in his statement before the committee. He also
said Scalia has argued that employees should pay for their own safety
equipment, even when the equipment is required by law.
Fleishman says that Scalia has been waiting 200 days to be confirmed, as if
the 200-day waiting period is lengthy. Bill Gould, who chaired the National
Labor Relations Board under President Bill Clinton had to wait more than 9
months, more than 270 days, before he was confirmed. Senate Republicans held
up the Gould nomination, but Fleishman seems to be suggesting that Democrats
forget they way Republicans blocked Clinton nominations and rush the Scalia
nomination through. Instead, Senator Daschle has indicated that there will
be a vote on the Scalia nomination next year, and that he doesn’t think
Scalia has the votes to be confirmed.
The Scalia nomination isn’t the only one that flies the face of good sense.
President Bush has nominated Otto Reich to serve as assistant secretary of
state for western hemisphere affairs, a key Latin American policy post. Reich
is a staunch anti-Castro Cuban-American who worked on the Reagan
administration's strategy against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua in the 1980s.
Haven’t we learned anything about living peacefully in our own hemisphere?
Couldn’t Mr. Bush have nominated someone who had a more balanced view on Cuba?
Many will argue that the President has a right to appoint those that he wants
to work with. Still, the Senate has the right of “advice and consent”. With
all this wartime talk of bipartisanship, has the President ever bothered to
seek advice from Senators on both sides of the aisle about the appointments
he seeks? It seems not. Instead, we’re getting grandstanding from Ari
Fleishman whose smooth alliterations simply can’t gloss over the fact that
Mr. Bush is using his wartime popularity to try to shove unacceptable
nominations down the Senate’s throat.
If the Senate adjourns for the holidays without voting on Scalia, Reich,
and the other Bush nominations, it is possible that Mr. Bush will offer both
men recess appointments. Been there, done that. President Clinton made
recess appointments when his nominees didn’t get Senate confirmation, most
controversially when he appointed Bill Lan Lee to serve as Assistant Attorney
General for Civil Rights in the Justice Department. President Bush can go
that route if he likes. But his spokesperson, then, ought to stop behaving
as if this Senate’s behavior is so unprecedented. The Senate, and the
President, have reverted to politics as usual. Both sides ought to just
admit it.