President Obama announced Saturday that he will make 15 recess appointments, including appointing Craig Becker and Mark Pearce to fill seats on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).  Just two days earlier, all 41 Senate Republicans presented the President with a letter urging him not to use the recess period to appoint Mr. Becker.  Senate Republicans have twice blocked Becker’s appointment.  Their concerns focus on Becker’s impartiality because of his former role as associate general counsel for the Service Employees International Union and the AFL-CIO, as well as his writings regarding the limited role of employers in unionization elections. 

The five-member NLRB has been operating with only two members since the end of 2007: Chairman Wilma B. Liebman (Democrat) and Peter C. Schaumber (Republican).  Becker and Pearce will now fill two of the Board’s three empty slots.  President Obama had previously nominated Becker, Pierce, and Republican Brian Hayes to fill the vacancies.  Mr. Obama chose not to appoint Hayes to the remaining open position, perhaps in an effort to pressure the Senate to confirm all three nominations. Without Senate confirmation, Becker’s and Pearce’s recess appointments will expire at the end of the 2011 Senate session. 

The President’s announcement comes less than a week after the Supreme Court heard oral argument in New Process Steel, L.P. v. NLRB, a case that threatens to overturn over two years of NLRB decisions.  New Process Steel challenges the validity of the over five hundred decisions rendered by the NLRB in the time only two members have occupied its five seats.  Although the new appointments will secure the validity of NLRB decisions going forward, the Supreme Court’s decision in New Process Steel still threatens to vacate hundreds of NLRB decisions issued since the end of 2007.