Labor law

By Eric M. Gutiérrez, Legislative & Public Policy Director for the National Employment Lawyers Association

President Obama routinely gets high marks for his efforts to diversify the federal judiciary by nominating “non-traditional” candidates for federal judgeships. In fact, nearly three of every four nominees confirmed to the federal bench during his Administration are either women or minorities; he also is the first president who hasn’t selected a majority of white males for lifetime judgeships.

Articles and commentary addressing judicial diversity, however, have focused typically on racial, ethnic, and gender diversity. The National Employment Lawyers Association (NELA) recently published a report entitled, “Judicial Hostility To Workers’ Rights: The Case For Professional Diversity On The Federal Bench,” which targets another type of diversity that is equally as important and sorely lacking on the federal bench — professional diversity. Like his predecessors, President Obama’s nominees have largely been corporate lawyers, judges, or prosecutors prior to their nominations, while fewer have been public defenders, legal services attorneys, or public interest lawyers. Even fewer have devoted their professional careers to representing workers and civil rights litigants.

Overlooking qualified candidates whose professional experience includes representing workers in employment, labor, and civil rights cases inevitably reinforces the image of a judiciary that is unfamiliar with, and therefore indifferent to, the plight of everyday Americans. Moreover, as the NELA report points out, the lack of professional diversity has contributed to the increasing judicial hostility workers face in employment cases and the deleterious effect on workers’ access to the courts to vindicate their rights.

Justice Byron R. White remarked on the value of Thurgood Marshall’s professional diversity:

by Nicole Flatow

In recess appointing Richard Cordray to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and three others to the National Labor Relations Board, President Obama has acted “sensibly and soundly to defend his own prerogatives,” UNC Chapel Hill constitutional law professor Michael Gerhardt said during a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing Wednesday.

During a more than three-hour hearing that featured sharp questioning and a host of objections to President Obama’s actions by Sen. Mike Lee, Gerhardt explained the clear constitutionality of President Obama’s action, and praised the Office of Legal Counsel’s recent memorandum defending the legality of the action as a “perfectly good example” of the kind of nonpartisan legal analysis performed by the office.

After dismissing arguments that President Obama did not act during an actual “recess” because the Senate held pro forma sessions every three days, Gerhardt went further to explain that Obama has an affirmative constitutional duty to enforce the laws faithfully, which he was aiming to effectuate in making recess appointments.

“No doubt in this case the president considered that if he didn’t act there would be laws left unenforced --  laws that he’s obviously trying to do what he can to put into implementation,” Gerhardt said.

Some of the other witnesses testified that the recess appointments have resulted in uncertainty for businesses, because decisions made by the NLRB and actions taken by the CFPB may be invalidated if legal challenges to Obama’s appointments are successful.

But Gerhardt agreed with Rep. Danny Davis during questioning that all actions and major pieces of legislation are subject to legal challenge, and there is nothing unique about Obama’s recess appointments.

“It’s sort of a false premise to say that recess appointments are likely to create litigation when the litigation is likely to take place in any event,” Davis said. “Whether these are recess appointees or any other kind of appointees, individuals still have the option to ask for judicial review.”

Around the same time that this hearing was occurring, the Senate Banking Committee was also reviving the issue of Obama’s recess appointments during an oversight hearing involving Richard Cordray.

As The National Law Journal’s Jenna Greene explains: