Politico: GOP May Try to Block Solis Appointment
Posted on January 21st, 2009 by Tim Eavenson | No Comments »Filed under: ., Labor Law, Politics |
Politico is reporting that some Republican Senators may be campaigning to block the approval of Secretary of Labor nominee Hilda Solis.
The GOP is ostensibly upset that Solis dodged certain questions during her confirmation hearing last week. From the article:
“She answered no questions,” said Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), a member of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. “If she won’t answer the questions, how can you support the nomination?”
During the California Democrat’s Jan. 9 confirmation hearing, Solis repeatedly told senators that she could not speak for the incoming Obama administration on the card check bill, and she told Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) that she was “not qualified” to speak about maintaining right-to-work laws that prohibit workers from paying union dues as a condition of employment.
This, of course, has little to do with Congresswoman Solis’s answers at her hearing. The Republican Senators on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee have enough background on Solis to know exactly where she stands on these laws. As we noted earlier, Solis has been a champion of labor since her days in the California legislature. Plus, with 58 Democratically-controlled seats and at least some Republican support, Solis’ approval by the Senate is near-certain.
It is much more likely that the GOP is using Solis’s appointment as a shot across the bow of the new administration. By gumming up Solis’s confirmation a little, the Republican minority is letting President Obama and their Democratic counterparts in the Senate know that the fight over labor-changing laws like EFCA will not be quick and easy, either.
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