SCOTUS Says "Nope" to NLRB Appointments
This morning, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled against Obama's NLRB recess appointments. Venable's John Cooney, a former OMB deputy GC, says while Obama will pass along diminished powers to his successors, "the outcome could have been much, much worse: The Office of the Presidency dodged a bullet today." The Court did affirm a president's right to both inter- and intra-session recess appointments, but said that even a 10-day recess is too short to make an appointment, invalidating the NLRB appointments made during a three-day break. Ballard Spahr labor partner Steve Suflas tells us more political wrangling from Congress is almost guaranteed, as the Court said the Senate can decide whether it's in recess or not. Meantime, a couple hundred NLRB opinions are nullified, so the Board will be swamped re-deciding them (since its makeup is still majority Democrat, Steve tells us most matters will likely end up with the same rulings).
