Free Craig Becker!

For the first time in over thirty  years, a nominee to the National Labor Relations Board will have to defend himself and his academic writings before the Senate.  Craig Becker, one of Obamas's three nominees to the NLRB has had his nomination held up for months by John McCain.  Through procedural manuvers, the Senate sent Becker's nomination back to President Obama; Obama resubmitted his nomination and prompted a demand from McCain to hold hearings on the nominee.  On February 2d Becker will face the Senate HELP committee and the hostility of McCain and his allies.

Mr. Becker is a very talented and smart labor lawyer who represents the Service Employees Union and the AFL-CIO.  As is traditional, the sitting president selects three members for the NLRB, and two are selected from the opposing party.  Mr. Becker was nominated last year along with labor lawyer Mark Pearce, and Republican nominee Brian Hayes.  Rather than confirming the nominations, McCain has placed a hold on the nominees because he is opposed to Craig Becker.  Thus, the NLRB has been run by two members who have issued decisions -- however, their authority to issue decisions has been challenged and is now going to be heard by the Supreme Court.

McCain is pretending to be opposed to Becker because of a law review article he wrote in 1993 when he was a professor.  In the article, Becker postulated that employers have no interest in union elections, and therefore should be limited in their ability to campaign.  McCain and some on the right are now using that article and the Becker nomination as a proxy for their opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act.

Democratic leaders need to buck up and support Becker now.  If we've learned one thing from the health care fiasco, it's that coming to the middle in an attempt to compromise before the other side has offered anything is a mistake.  When Bush was in office he nominated and pushed through individuals from the far right, Congress be damned.  Clinton, in contrast, often appointed moderates in the hope of appeasing his right-wing opposition.  If there's one thing we've learned from the health care fiasco, it's that this President's opponents will oppose him no matter what.  So he might as well just push for what, and whom, he believes in.