Washington, DC (October 1, 2012) – National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys filed a brief in yet another legal battle over President Barack Obama’s purported “recess appointments” to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
Foundation attorneys filed the amicus curiae brief jointly with the Landmark Legal Foundation on Wednesday in the case Noel Canning v. NLRB, pending now before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
The brief was filed for four workers who are represented by their Foundation attorneys in cases pending before the NLRB.
Another direct legal challenge to the Obama recess appointments is a Foundation case pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago. That case is among the first in the nation to reach the appellate courts challenging the Obama recess appointments and may help set the standard for all further challenges
Foundation staff attorneys argue in their briefs in both cases that the recess appointments are unconstitutional because the U.S. Senate was still in session per the body’s rules. Therefore the President could not make the appointments to the NLRB without Senate confirmation.
If Foundation attorneys’ argument that the Obama’s NLRB appointments are unconstitutional prevails, then the Board has only two valid members. The Board would then have lacked a quorum since January 3, 2012 necessary to enact rules or enforce federal labor law under a U.S. Supreme Court precedent established in 2010.
“Barack Obama’s so-called recess appointments to the Labor Board clearly violate the U.S. Constitution,” said Mark Mix, President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “Because the Board does not have a legitimate quorum, it must cease handing down rulings in Foundation-supported cases, and all other cases, until a legitimate quorum is established.”
The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation is a nonprofit, charitable organization providing free legal aid to employees whose human or civil rights have been violated by compulsory unionism abuses. The Foundation, which can be contacted toll-free at 1-800-336-3600, assists thousands of employees in about 200 cases nationwide per year.
