The Senate is getting ready to vote on five nominees to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). They should confirm the whole package and get the NLRB functioning again. They are also voting on several other nominees from judges to cabinet positions. If Republicans filibuster to obstruct these, it is time to fix the filibuster. We just had an election and the results were decisive. Republicans must stop obstructing democracy.

A “Full Package” Of NLRB Nominees

President Obama has nominated 5 people to serve on the NLRB. Two of these are “management side” (i.e. anti-union) Republicans. Labor and other groups are urging the Senate to confirm all of these nominees as a “package” so the NLRB can get back to work. Working people need and deserve a functioning NLRB, and confirmation of the “full package” of nominees will provide that stability

400 professors and 125 leaders nationwide have signed letters urging the Senate to confirm these nominees and get the NLRB functioning.

More than two dozen women’s organizations have also written urging confirmation of the nominees, (from AFL-CIO blog),

The National Labor Relations Board has long worked to ensure the rights of employees to bargain collectively, if they choose to do so. This work is particularly meaningful for women… Unions have always been important to advancing women’s economic security. Union wage and benefit structures are typically more transparent than those for non-union workplaces, which in turn helps to decrease wage discrimination… working families need a functioning, fully-staffed National Labor Relations Board to protect their right to an important strategy in the fight for economic security: collective bargaining.

NLRB Not Functioning

Republican Senators have been obstructing the NLRB from functioning, on purpose, so companies can fire union organizers, etc. The make more money by keeping unions out so wages are low, benefits are minimal-to-none, and unemployment high. But this is bad for 99% of us and bad for the economy. The country needs these nominees confirmed so we can start getting back to normal.

Watch this video of Marcus Hedger describing how he was treated and then illegally fired for union activities. The NLRB ruled that he should get his job back and the company just ignored that, saying the NLRB doesn’t have enough Board members to enforce the rules. So he has lost his house. The company broke the law, then ignored the NLRB’s ruling, and this is happening all across the country — more than 22,000 workers — while Republicans keep the NLRB from functioning.

Other Nominees

The Senate is also awaiting confirmation of other nominees, like Thomas Perez to head the Department of Labor and Gina McCarthy to the Environmental Protection Agency. Republicans have already filibustered Caitlin J. Halligan, keeping her from becoming a federal appeals court judge. Next week the Senate will vote on the nomination of Richard Cordray to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. (Republicans have pledged to obstruct any nominee to head up that agency.)

It is essential that these nominees are confirmed so the government can function for We the People. The obstruction has to stop.

Obstruction And Filibuster

The Senate is dysfunctional and needs reform. Republicans are obstructing everything as a strategy to turn Americans against President Obama and against government itself. As of the end of the last Congressional session there were had been more than 380 filibusters. Now there have been several more.

We just had a decisive election but nothing is moving forward. This is intentional obstruction of democracy. It is time to fix the Senate.

Fix The Senate Now is a coalition of organizations asking that Senate rules be changed to make it more difficult to filibuster. Specifically, restore the rule to make them talk. If they feel the need to filibuster — and filibusters are sometimes the right thing to do — they should do what the public expects and stand there and talk, slowing the process and allowing the public to rally and show their approval or disapproval of what is going on. That is how democracy should function.

What You Can Do

Visit Fix The Senate Now (also on Facebook).

The AFL-CIO is asking people to “text NLRB to 235246 and ask the Senate to confirm the board nominations now. (Standard message and data rates may apply.) You also may call your senators at 1-888-264-6154.” Also click this to “Tell your senators to confirm President Obama’s NLRB nominations to make sure workers’ rights are protected.

The Communications Workers of America (CWA) and is uring the Senate to “Give Us 5” — “even if that means changing the Senate rules on nominations to break through the gridlock.” See their fact sheet on this.

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For weeks, I’ve been writing that the movement to increase the minimum wage near you. Next week, however, that movement will arrive in my own back yard. Low-wage workers organized by Good Jobs Nation are coming to Washington, DC to rally for living wages, on Tuesday, May 21st, at 12:00pm, at Columbus Circle, in front of Union Station.

But this protest isn’t targeting fast food restaurants like McDonald’s or Burger King or retail shops like TJMaxx. On Tuesday, low-wage workers will take their demands to the biggest low-wage job creator in the country — the one funded by taxpayers like you and me: the federal government.

Early this month, a study by Demos, “Underwriting Bad Jobs: How Our Tax Dollars Are Funding Low-Wage Work and Fueling Inequality,” revealed that the federal government revealed that millions of low wage workers employed by private businesses, who serve the federal government in a variety of ways, can’t afford basic necessities like health care, food and housing, because they’re paid such low wages.

We find that nearly two million private sector employees working on behalf of America earn wages too low to support a family, making $12 or less per hour. This is more than the number of low-wage workers at Walmart and McDonalds combined.1 Yet, if anything, this figure underestimates the total number of poorly-paid workers funded by our tax dollars. Our analysis encompasses U.S. workers employed by government contractors, paid by federal health care spending, supported by Small Business Administration loans, working on federal construction grants, and maintaining buildings leased by the federal government. This encompasses the largest share of poorly-paid workers funded by our taxes. However, other streams of funding have yet to be analyzed. For example, loans and subsidies from the Department of Agriculture fund giant agribusinesses that employ more than a million farm workers, while grants from the Department of Education fund low-wage assistant teachers, bus monitors and cooks in Head Start and other programs. Due to lack of data, retail and food service workers for concessionaires of the National Parks Service and other federal agencies also fall outside our analysis.

These are employees working on behalf of America, doing jobs that we have decided are worthy of public funding—yet they’re being treated in a very un-American way. Our nation has a history of ensuring our tax dollars provide decent jobs. From the 1931 Davis-Bacon Act to Executive Order 11246 of 1965, and a host of other laws and executive actions, our laws have mandated that companies working on behalf of the American people are upholding high standards of employment practices. Yet as the nature and prevalence of federal contracting, lending and grant-making have changed, and some laws have been weakened, working people have fallen through the cracks.

When our tax dollars underwrite bad jobs, the economy as a whole is weakened and all of us are negatively affected. There is a ripple effect as low-paid workers and their families have little money to spend, hindering economic growth that could be creating more jobs. Poorly-paid workers also contribute less in taxes and are more likely to rely on public benefits to care for their families. In contrast, we would all benefit from an economy where workers earn good wages—and we have a special responsibility to see that the people working on behalf of our nation are paid and treated fairly. Raising standards for people working on behalf of America is one important piece to providing opportunities for workers to reach the middle class.

At a press conference announcing the launch of Good Jobs Nation earlier this month, workers bore witness to the “ripple effect” federally-funded low-wage jobs.

• Lucilia Ramirez, who has cleaned Union Station for 21 years spoke of making $8.75 an hour, with no benefits. Struggling to pay their mortgage on her small salary, Ramirez and her husband were forced to rent out bedrooms to strangers just to keep a roof over their heads.
• Katina Washington, who earns $9.65 an hour cleaning offices rented by the Department of Justice, lives with her cousin because she can’t afford her own apartment, and has to rely on food stamps to help with groceries.
• Nelly Garcia, 55, works at the Old Post Office Building, for a company that makes lots of money from federal contracts. But Garcia only earns $9.00 an hour, which isn’t enough to afford food or pay for the subway commute to work. A cancer survivor, Garcia has no health benefits, and must rely on Medicaid as a result.

These are just a few of the voices of the over 4 million low-wage workers employed by private companies on behalf of the federal government. Many of them can’t afford basic essentials like food, shelter, and medical care. Some 30 percent of them actually make less than minimum wage. Forty percent must depend on food stamps, Medicaid, and other public assistance to survive. Sixty-five percent of them struggle to pay for things like rent, utilities, and food.

If, like me, you live and/or work in the Washington area, you probably walk past these workers every day. We smile, and say “Hello,” “Good morning,”  or “Good night.” We live and work in a place that is one of the biggest examples of economic inequality, in an “recovery” where most of the new jobs created are low-wage jobs. Seven of the ten wealthiest zip codes in the country are in the Washington, DC area, yet DC would have the third highest poverty rate in the country — if DC counted as a state. Federal benchmark compensation for CEO Reimbursement for work on a federal contract is about $760,000.00, but the lowest compensation reported by workers on federal contracts is $6.50 an hour.

Hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars in federal contracts, loans, and leases go to corporations that pocket billions and pay their CEOs millions in bonuses, but pay such low wages that workers can’t afford food and shelter. Taxpayer dollars go to corporations that pay their employees so little that many of them have to rely on public assistance.

Like I said yesterday, when an employer pays workers so little that workers have to rely on public assistance, is should count as “corporate welfare.” Big, profitable contractors are forcing taxpayers to subsidize their unlivable wages. These companies are receiving funding from the federal government, but they are further burdening taxpayers by leaving their employees to rely on food stamps and other public assistance programs instead of paying them a living wage.

This has to stop. That’s why federally funded low-wage workers are joining together for a living wage and a voice on the job. The federal government has a responsibility to ensure taxpayer-funded contracts help the economy by paying workers enough to afford the basics like rent and food and to put money back into their local economies.

Next week, Washingtonians have a chance to stand with low wage workers, instead of just passing by them every day on our way to or from our homes, condos, and apartments in and around Washington, DC. More than ever, Americans need good jobs, with liveable wages, and real benefits. Maybe the place to start is right in our own back yards.

MORNING MESSAGE: Five Real Scandals Republicans Might Want To Address

OurFuture.org’s Bill Scher: “Republican might want to ask themselves: do we really believe there’s any there there? … Meanwhile, there are real scandals out there: festering crises that demand policy solutions and government action. For example: 1. Carbon dioxide atmospheric levels hovering around 400 parts per million … 2. Our crumbling infrastructure needs $3.6 trillion just to reach a “state of good repair” … 3. The top 1 percent in America holds 35 percent of the nation’s wealth … 4. More than 4 million Americans have been jobless for more than half a year … 5. Forty percent of America’s children between 3 and 5 are not enrolled any sort of preschool…”

Bipartisan House Group Reaches Immigration Agreement

Bipartisan House group reaches tentative agreement. Politico: “House immigration negotiators emerged from a meeting Thursday with an agreement ‘in principle,’ and plan to turn their attention to drafting a comprehensive reform bill. Rep. John Carter (R-Texas) made the announcement after the two-hour meeting. He declined to elaborate on the details of the deal.”

Senate negotiators trying to woo Sen. Orrin Hatch. W. Post: “The bid to bring Hatch into the fold highlights the strategy of Senate immigration proponents who believe that building as much bipartisan support for the bill is crucial to improving its chances in the Republican-led House … Hatch has filed several amendments to relax visa limits and rules for high-tech companies seeking to hire foreign engineers and programmers … Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), backed by labor unions that fear that Americans could lose out on jobs, fiercely opposes the further relaxation of restrictions on H-1B visas for high-tech companies.”

Filibusters Loom, Dems Near Breaking Point

EPA, Labor nominees clear committee on party-line votes, likely face filibuster, renewing rules reform push. NYT: “…many Democrats have become increasingly exasperated by routine efforts to stall and block presidential nominees. And they are now more supportive than ever of exploiting a technicality of Senate rules that would allow them to make changes with a simple majority of 51 votes.”

Republicans signal opposition to package of NLRB nominees. WSJ: “While ‘It is important to have a fully confirmed National Labor Relations Board … I can’t support the nomination of these two’ recess appointees, said Sen. [Lamar] Alexander, who called them both ‘qualified’ and armed with ‘distinguished backgrounds.’ ‘My problem is that they have continued to issue decisions’ after the D.C. Court ruled against their [prior recess] appointments, said Mr. Alexander … He suggested that Mr. Obama should nominate two equally qualified candidates to replace them, though some Democrats question whether Republicans would confirm any Democrat to the board…”

400 professors and 125 community leaders sign letter urging approval of NLRB nominees, announces American Rights at Work: “In order for our labor laws to work effectively, it is essential that the agency responsible for enforcing these laws be operational. Current and future vacancies on the NLRB, together with the uncertainty created by the D.C. Circuit’s recent Noel Canning decision, make it imperative that the Senate move quickly to consider the package of nominees.”

Breakfast Sides

Republican debt limit hostage plan taking shape. Politico: “In addition to hiking the debt limit, the legislation is likely to have three categories: spending cuts, a framework for tax reform and what will be called a ‘jobs’ element, which will include energy legislation, which would likely be a provision related to the Keystone XL pipeline.”

Bank of England official praises Brown-Vitter “too big to fail” reform bill reports HuffPost.

Over at The Week, I make the argument that presidential scandal politics usually fail to lift the political prospects of the party outside the White House. No party has reaped a political reward from pushing scandal since Nixon, yet both parties have repeatedly tried.

However, short of impeachment or electoral gains, opposition parties may be sated by simply using scandal to distract the President from advancing his agenda. But today, that doesn’t make sense. Republicans already have the numbers in Congress to block what they want. And the main item on Obama’s legislative agenda for the year is one that leading Republicans now support: immigration reform.

Furthermore, distraction cuts two ways. By flogging scandal, the opposition party risks distracting themselves from developing and selling their own governing philosophy and policy agenda. And Republicans are already in a deep intellectual hole, lacking an agenda that makes a break from failed Bushonomics and might be taken seriously by the public.

Republican might also want to ask themselves: do we really believe there’s any there there?

Does it even make sense that Obama would have lost re-election if he quickly blamed Al Qaeda for Benghazi, having already proven his counterterrorism bona fides?

Does it makes sense that an IRS managed by a Bush administration holdover would allow a plot to prevent Republicans from defeating Obama by deliberately targeting county-level Tea Party groups but blessed Karl Rove’s new machine with tax-exempt status?

Is it even a scandal for the Justice Department to apply current law and subpoena phone records in a sensitive national security leak investigation? Controversial and worthy of debate, but no heads are going to roll if it’s legal.

Meanwhile, there are real scandals out there: festering crises that demand policy solutions and government action. For example:

1. Carbon dioxide atmospheric levels hovering around 400 parts per million. Some argue that we need to be at 350 ppm to avoid the ill effects of global warming. But considering the rapid rate we are putting carbon in the air, and the difficulty involved in removing what is already in the air, we may literally never be able to get below 400, ever.

2. Our crumbling infrastructure needs $3.6 trillion just to reach a “state of good repair,” according to the American Society of Civil Engineers. That doesn’t even count what it would cost to build new modern infrastructure such as high-speed rail or a smart electric grid. One proposal, backed by President Obama, is to help get started is to launch an infrastructure bank, using small amounts federal seed money to attract big private investment. The approach has won the backing of both the AFL-CIO and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, but Republicans have failed to embrace it or propose any significant alternatives.

3. The top 1 percent in America holds 35 percent of the nation’s wealth. It was not always thus. Over the last 30 years, the top 1 percent has increased its wealth by 38%, while the bottom 60 percent has seen their wealth diminish. In other words, inequality has gotten worse. And that’s harmful for all of society. As one professor explains: “A wide range of social problems are worse in societies with bigger income differences between rich and poor. These include physical and mental illness, violence, low math and literacy scores among young people, lower levels of trust and weaker community life, poorer child well-being, more drug abuse, lower social mobility and higher rates of imprisonment and teenage births.”

4. More than 4 million Americans have been jobless for more than half a year. The long-term unemployment problem is not only devastating for those directly affect, it’s also a major drag on the recovery of the entire economy. Those out of the workforce for extended periods of time have a much harder time getting rehired than those briefly unemployed. We are risking the creation of a permanent underclass to care for instead of tapping our labor pool to the fullest extent possible.

5. Forty percent of America’s children between 3 and 5 are not enrolled any sort of preschool let alone a high-quality program that research shows can make a critical difference in their ability to perform well in school and find good jobs in later life. This is a major gap in the American promise of equal opportunity for all.

These are all massive problems with no easy fixes. You might think a major political party would have something to say about them, spend some time developing ideas to solve them, and seek to build public support for those ideas.

Or Republicans can chase Benghazi down the rabbit hole.

There are plenty of scandals out there to choose from. What a party chooses to focus on speaks volumes.

It’s official. Minimum wage workers going on strike is no longer a mere trend. It’s a movement. Not that there was ever any doubt, after minimum wage workers in the fast food and retail sectors of major cities like New York City, Chicago, St.Louis, and Detroit walked off the job, demanding better wages and better treatment in the workplace. 

Yesterday, the movement reached Wisconsin, where fast food workers in Milwaukee took to the streets to demand a $15 minimum wage. You can show your support by signing their petition.

Fast-food and retail workers walked off the job in Milwaukee, Wis., on Wednesday, prompting labor organizers to speak of “spreading unrest” in the service industry.

The strike followed similar one-day walkouts over the last two months in Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, and New York, as well as a nationwide walkout by Walmart workers on Black Friday.

Like those who have gone on strike in other cities, the Milwaukee workers are demanding a “living wage” of $15 an hour and the right to form a union.

“I feel that I do so much work and get so little pay,” said Stephanie Sanders, a 33-year-old McDonald’s employee who earns the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour at the Milwaukee restaurant where she works.

Since the recession, low-paying work has comprised more than half the country’s new jobs. Although many corporations are earning more than they did before the downturn, workers’ wages have not improved. Fast-food and retail companies are among the nation’s largest employers of low-wage workers.

Like Detroit, Milwaukee is reeling from the decline in American manufacturing, which has cost Milwaukee 100,00o jobs since the 1980s. And, as in Detroit, the loss of manufacturing jobs hit African Americans particularly hard.

“Milwaukee has a really special history particularly for African Americans,” said Jennifer Epps of the group Wisconsin Citizen Action, which helped organize the strikes. “We had the highest per capita income for black workers in the country, now we have one of the lowest.”

A report from the University of Milwaukee found that in 1970, over 54 percent of black men in the city were employed in factories, more than twice the percentage of whites. But, as Milwaukee’s Sentinel Journal reports, 100,000 jobs in Delco Electronics, Pabst Brewing Company and other factories left the city since 1980. By 2009, under 15 percent of black men held manufacturing these jobs, about equivalent to the percentage as white workers.

As these jobs disappeared, Milwaukee’s rate of black unemployment spiked. Before the recession, the city rivaled Buffalo, NY with the highest rates of black unemployment, according to a report from the University. And those who have found work are now far more likely to be relegated to non-union, minimum wage jobs. The Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development projects that food preparation and serving jobs, including those in fast food, will grow by 12 percent in the next decade, three times the rate of jobs overall.

Over 200 workers from fast food chains like McDonald’s, Burger King, Taco Bell joined workers from retailers like TJ Maxx, Dollar Tree and FootAction joined the growing “McJobs” rebellion.

With the average Walmart salesperson making only $8.81 per hour, the six heirs to the Walmart fortune have pocketed about $100 billion in wealth – more than the least well-off 41 percent of Americans combined.

McDonald’s raked in $5.5 billion in profits in 2012, while Yum! Brands, which includes KFC, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut, took home $1.6 billion in profits.

With government failing to act and corporations succeeding in keeping out unions, the Robin-Hood-in-reverse economy – taking from workers to give to the rich – is steadily getting worse. A majority of jobs created in the economic recovery have been in low-wage industries. Unless pay levels are raised, seven out of 10 growth occupations over the next decade will be low-wage positions, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

So what do participants in the Raise Up Milwaukee campaign, and their counterparts in other cities, want? A basic wage of $15 per hour, and the right to form unions without corporate interference and intimidation. They understand that big corporations in the service industries can afford to pay more, but that these companies won’t do so unless workers join together and demand wages that support families. Like workers have through U.S. history, they are turning to unions to help solve a low-wage problem that is dragging our entire economy down.

Raises and the right to form unions would shift money back to working families for basic necessities, instead of sending it off to distant corporate headquarters to pad profits for executives and Wall Street stockholders. That shift, in turn, would help support small businesses and jobs in local communities.

Minimum wage workers in Wisconsin currently earn $7.25 an hour. Working 40 hours a week at that rate, a worker would earn about $15,080 a year — more than $400 below Wisconsin’s poverty line for a family of two. Raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour would still fall short of a wage to support a family of two.

Workers earning $7.25 and working a consistent 40 hours a week earn $15,080 a year—over $400 under the Wisconsin poverty line for a family of two. While a $9 minimum wage would increase that annual income to $18,720, an increase to $15 would make it a full $31,200. That’s still barely three quarters of what’s needed to comfortably support one adult and one child in Wisconsin, according to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Minimum Wage Calculator, but it would be a dramatic upgrade from current conditions.

It gets worse if you take wage theft into consideration. According to a new survey by Fast Food Forward, 84 percent of fast food workers in New York City have experienced various forms of wage theft in the past year.

• 36 percent report being forced to work while off the clock
• 32 percent of cashiers reported being required to pay their employers if their registers were short
• 30 percent report working more than 40 hours in a week without receiving time-and-a-half for overtime
• 46 percent report begin the victim of at least one illegal paycheck deduction, such as paying for meals not eaten or for company-required uniforms
• 30 percent report receiving their paychecks late, or having their paychecks bounce

Thus McDonald’s, KFC, and Taco Bell are raking in billions in profits, while employees like 34-year-old Tessie Harrell, struggle to afford basic necessities, and have to rely on food stamps. If taxpayers are supplementing wages for the employees of corporations earning billions of dollars in profit  (and paying little to no taxes themselves), maybe we need to start thinking of food stamps, etc., as a form of  ”corporate welfare.” 

Or we can join minimum wage workers in Milwaukee in demanding a $15 minimum wage, and the right to unionize. 

MORNING MESSAGE: Simpson-Bowles Austerity Gang, Go Home

OurFuture.org’s Richard Eskow: “A lot of liberals, like Josh Marshall, are celebrating the fact that the deficit is plummeting so rapidly. But it’s actually going down too quickly, in a way that undercuts long-term stability and growth … ‘Go big or go home,’ bellow Bowles and Simpson, and for once they’re right. Go home, all of you, and take the sequester with you. Then the grown-ups can start working on realways to fix the economy, with jobs and growth and other things that really work.”

Rifts Form In Immigration Reform

Tension between Dems and Rubio. The Hill: “Rubio caught fellow members of the Senate’s gang off guard Tuesday when he voiced support for an amendment sponsored by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), the bill’s most outspoken opponent, to dramatically strengthen the system for tracking entry and exit visas. The Sessions measure was defeated … ‘He needs this bill to succeed as much as Democrats do. If this bill goes down, he goes down with it,’ warned a senior Democratic aide. ‘Rubio is overplaying his hand if he thinks we’ll go along with anything.’”

Sen. Orrin Hatch making demands to win his vote for immigration reform. Roll Call: “Hatch has offered a package of 24 amendments to the bill, and he wants to see some of them adopted before he will lend his support to the measure. But a few of Hatch’s proposals are within the jurisdiction of the Finance Committee, and that may make it difficult for Democrats to compromise with him.”

House GOPers may dissolve bipartisan working group. Politico: “Republicans in the House bipartisan immigration group are threatening to leave negotiations if they don’t come to an agreement Thursday … If the House does not come out with its own plan, it will make immigration reform a lot more difficult. The theory from Republican leadership was that the bipartisan group’s product would give the House GOP buy-in … The group has been hung up over how the legislation deals with the health care of newly documented workers and worker visas.”

Medicare Chief Confirmed

Senate actually confirms a nominee. NYT: “The Senate on Wednesday approved President Obama’s nominee to run Medicare and Medicaid, Marilyn B. Tavenner, providing the agency with its first confirmed chief in six and a half years … [She] will have a huge role in carrying out major provisions of the new health care law, including the expansion of Medicaid and the creation of marketplaces to sell subsidized private insurance.”

Another vote scheduled on CFPB nominee for next week. Reid warns of filibuster reform if blocked. TPM: “‘We’re going to fill that job. Cordray is there now. He’s going to get a vote.’ Reid wasn’t able to explain why he believes (or claims to believe) Cordray will ultimately be confirmed. But he alluded to the possibility that he may pursue a rules change mid-session. ‘Whether it’s Jeb Bush or Hillary Clinton that’s the next president, I don’t think they should have to go through what we’ve gone through here,’ Reid said. ‘People better watch.’”

Senate cmte moves on labor nominees. WSJ: “First up will be a 9:15 a.m. Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee vote on [Labor Sec nominee Tom] Perez … He is expected to clear the committee, where Democrats outnumber Republicans by two, but his fate before the full Senate remains cloudy … Afterwards, the committee plans a hearing on the pending nominations to the National Labor Relations Board … The five-slot board currently has just three members, the minimum needed to issue rulings and conduct most business. NLRB Chairman Mark Pearce’s term will expire in August, leaving the board without a quorum …”

New Clothing Maker Accepts Safety Agreement

Abercrombie & Fitch agrees to safety plan. NYT: “Under the legally enforceable plan, retailers and apparel companies have committed to having rigorous, independent factory inspections, and to helping underwrite any fire safety and building repairs needed to correct violations.”

Other garment companies considering running from factory problems instead of solving them. NYT: “Western executives are checking on potential new suppliers in southern Vietnam, central Cambodia and the hinterlands of Java in Indonesia. Yet safety problems could exist anywhere. The ceiling of a small factory that makes shoes in central Cambodia collapsed on Thursday morning, killing at least two people … Many multinationals are exploring their options in case street clashes and politically motivated national strikes worsen in Bangladesh … Garment manufacturing makes up a fifth of the economy in Bangladesh and four-fifths of its exports … desperately dependent on continued export orders to stave off soaring unemployment and possibly further political unrest.”

Breakfast Sides

Republicans can’t agree on a debt limit hostage plan. Roll Call: “They talked about balancing the budget in 10 years, repealing Obamacare, slashing spending and overhauling the tax code. In other words, the House Republican meeting Wednesday afternoon to brainstorm a path forward for dealing with the debt limit basically consisted of ‘a laundry list of everything imaginable,’ in the words of Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah.”

Apple will testify to Congress about offshore tax shelters. Politico: “The company recently avoided paying as much as $9.2 billion in taxes by buying back stock with debt instead of offshore cash, Bloomberg reported. Apple has a reported $100 billion in offshore funds.”

“Big Banks Get Break in Rules to Limit Risks” reports NYT: “…regulators initially planned to force asset managers like Vanguard and Pimco to contact at least five banks when seeking a price for a derivatives contract … [But] the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has agreed to lower the standard to two banks … [Chair Gary] Gensler, eager to rein in derivatives trading but lacking an elusive third vote, accepted the deal … Mr. Gensler said that, even with the compromise, the rule will still push private derivatives trading onto regulated trading platforms, much like stock trading. He also argued that the agency plans to adopt two other rules on Thursday that will subject large swaths of trades to regulatory scrutiny.”

The social safety net is still helping. ThinkProgress: “Nearly a third of the country’s population would be living on less than half of the median income without the social safety net, but taking it into account drops that number to 17.4 percent.”

The Senate Heath, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee will vote Thursday on President Obama’s nomination of Thomas Perez, currently head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, to head the Department of Labor. There are a majority of Democrats on this committee, so Republicans will not be able to obstruct this nomination from making it out of the committee. But then Perez moves to the full Senate for a confirmation vote, where he faces an almost-certain obstructive filibuster.

In recent days Republicans have blocked Environmental Protection agency nominee Gina McCarthy by boycotting a committee vote. With New Jersey Sen. Frank Lautenberg out due to illness, this kept the committee from having sufficient members to hold the vote. They are also blocking judges from confirmation (and even nomination). Earlier they filibustered Caitlin J. Halligan, nominated to the federal appeals court judge in the District of Columbia. They are filibustering other nominees as well as refusing to participate in the nomination process entirely (usually senators recommend nominees from their state to the president but Republicans are refusing to participate), leaving 82 judicial vacancies.

The public is starting to become aware of the extent of the obstruction that has been occurring – Republicans filibustering everything and everyone. So Republicans are moving from blatant obstruction to obstruction-under-cover, like the boycott of the committee vote on McCarthy. One new tactic is to shower nominees with written questions — up to numbers in the thousands — and then complaining that they either didn’t get sufficient responses or are not satisfied with the responses they did get. EPA nominee McCarthy received over 1,000 questions, 653 from just one senator.

So Perez will likely be obstructed from becoming the Labor Secretary, McCarthy will continue to be blocked for EPA and crucial judicial vacancies will remain unfilled.

And then there is the situation with the NLRB… Republicans are also obstructing nominations to the National Labor Relations Board, to keep the agency from being able to function. Please click through to Next Week’s Opportunity To Get Our Labor Board Operating Again for the story.

It is up to all of us to help make the public aware of the obstruction that is occurring. Then the public can do their part, by either putting pressure on Republicans to stop the obstruction, or letting them know they approve. Which one do you think the public will choose?
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Senate Republican obstruction of President Obama’s nominee for secretary of labor, Thomas Perez, got a strong rebuke from a coalition of Latino organizations that held a march and rally on Wednesday to call for an end to the filibuster threats to his nomination.

“We are here to put forward our full support for Tom Perez as the Secretary of Labor. He is eminently qualified for the post after a distinguished career in law and public service,” said Janet Murguia, President and CEO of the National Council of La Raza. Joining Murguia were representatives from the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda, CASA de Maryland, United Farm Workers and the Hispanic National Bar Association.

“Tom Perez is a respected and beloved leader in the Latino community. He has been a champion for Hispanic families, and we are here for him because he has been there for us,” Murguia said. “We urge the senators opposed to this nomination to stop their unconscionable delaying tactics and allowing this nomination to go forward. Tom deserves a vote, and we as a Latino community, are watching very closely.”

Perez is one of the dozens of Obama appointees who have fallen victim to the GOP’s obstructionism in the Senate. In Obama’s first term, the average nominee took more than four times as long to be confirmed as a nominee of President George W. Bush. The obstruction is only being ratcheted up in Obama’s second term; last week Republicans refused to show up at a committee hearing to stall the confirmation of Obama’s nominee to head the Environmental Protection Agency, Gina McCarthy. Republicans are using what they call Perez’ “ideological background” as their excuse to delay the nomination vote, which has been rescheduled for Thursday.

“It is totally unacceptable what is happening now in the Senate. There is enough proof to show that he is a qualified candidate to be our next Secretary of Labor, and to be on the front lines fighting for working families,” said Hector Sanchez, Chair of the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda.

Sanchez went on to point out the civil rights issues that Perez has taken up, including fighting the SB 1070 “papers please” immigration law in Arizona; HB 56 in Alabama, the nation’s “toughest immigration law”; and voting rights issues.

“Tom Perez can work with the entire society, not only with Latinos and workers, but with everybody,” said Gustavo Torres, Executive Director of CASA de Maryland, citing his work with migrant workers as well as high marks given to him by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and his work with the largest employers in Maryland.

“Unfortunately, he faces opposition from some Senators who say that he has been to vigorous in enforcing our nation’s civil rights laws, said Peter Reyes, President of the Hispanic National Bar Association, “When Tom Perez was nominated to serve at the Justice Department, he was confirmed by a vote of 72-22, with seventeen Republican senators who voted for him, including nine who are still in the Senate today. Those senators voted for Tom Perez to do a job, he did his job and he did it well. Some senators will never vote for a Tom Perez, and that is fine, but they should not be blocking the rest of the Senate from an up-or-down vote.”

Yesterday I wrote about how obstructionist Republican tactics are hollowing out our government, hobbling its agencies, and diminishing its responsiveness to the needs and concerns of ordinary Americans. Nowhere is this more apparent than in our court system, where Republican obstructionism may have far-reaching, disastrous consequences for public policy. And, again, that’s just fine with Republicans.

With 82 empty seats in our federal district and appellate courts, nearly 10 percent of federal judicial seats are vacant, and have been since President Obama took office. That’s the longest period of judicial vacancies in 35 years. Judicial vacancies have increased 51 percent since President Obama took office, compared to declining by 65 percent and 34 percent under Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, respectively.

To make matters worse, 40 percent of those vacancies are in districts that have been declared “judicial emergencies” — where vacancies have persisted for 18 months or more, and the hundreds of backlogged cases wait for someone to rule on them. Businesses and individuals wait longer for their claims to be resolved.

In the 35 circuits/districts declared “judicial emergencies,” people are literally waiting for justice, and often end up settling for something less. Since federal judges must give priority to criminal cases (which have increased by 70% in the past ten years), they’re forced to delay civil cases for years. According to a People for the American Way fact sheet, “Overloaded Courts, Not Enough Judges: The Impact on Real People,” that means longer delays for Americans seeking justice in cases involving:

• discrimination
• civil rights
• predatory lending practices
• consumer fraud
• immigrant rights
• environment
• government benefits
• business contracts
• mergers
• copyright infringement

For Dave Calder, in Utah, it meant a long wait for justice after a faulty gas can exploded in his trailer, killing his daughter and leaving him with severe burns over a third of his body. He sued in 2007. His medical bills reached $200,000 during the 4 1/2 years that passed before the case reached a jury verdict.

For Elizabeth and Nicholas Power, in Illinois, it mean settling for far less, after suing their employer for sex discrimination in 2008. By the time the case finally reached jury selection in 2011, the judge had to halt the trial in order to deal with a growing docket of criminal cases. The Powers settled the case, rather than continue to wait for a trial

It’s not that there aren’t nominees waiting. There are 22 judicial nominees just waiting for Senate confirmation. Their confirmations would fill 1/4 of the vacancies on the bench, and increase diversity of the federal (9 are women.) Of the 22 nominees, 13 were unanimously approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee, and 15 are waiting for Senate floor votes. (The rest are still waiting for hearings.)

Judicial nominees are probably in for a long wait. Some may sail through committee, but just about all them can expect long waits. In fact, President Obama’s judicial nominees have waited much, much longer than those of his predecessors. Obama’s judicial nominees wait an average of 116 days for a floor vote in the Senate, compared to an average wait of 34 days for President George W. Bush’s nominees.

That’s just the average. Some waiting periods are “above average.”

• Richard Taranto waited 484 days to be confirmed to the Federal Circuit Court, by a 91-0 vote.
• William Kayatta waited 300 days to be confirmed for the First Circuit from Maine, 88-12.
• Robert Bacharach waited 263 days to be confirmed to the United States Court of Appeals, 93-0.
• Patty Schwartz waited 18 months to be confirmed to the United States Court of Appeals last month, after the president nominated her in October 2011.

It’s not that the Senate has not confirmed President Obama’s nominees. It’s just confirming fewer than it has under previous administrations; just 160 during Obama’s first term, compared to 200 during Bill Clinton’s fist term and 205 During George W. Bush’s first term. Late last year, the Senate went into recess without any action on 19 non-controversial nominees with support from both parties.

In just four years, judicial vacancies are up, confirmations are down, and delays are longer. What gives?

To hear Republican Senators tell it, the White House is at fault for presenting fewer nominees, due to time-consuming background checks and an incredibly extensive vetting process. But despite those factors, the president isn’t far behind his predecessors. Obama offered 215 nominations in his first term, compared to 247 in Bill Clinton’s first term, and 231 in George W. Bush’s first term.

It’s not up to the president alone to nominate potential judges. Senators have always had a role in the process. Republicans have simply refused to participate in recommending potential nominees.

On its face, the absence of nominees would appear to be a sign that President Barack Obama is slacking. After all, he is responsible for nominating judges, and he did put forward fewer nominees at the end of his first term than his two predecessors. But a closer look at data on judicial nominees, and conversations with people involved in the nomination process, reveals the bigger problem is Republican senators quietly refusing to recommend potential judges in the first place.

The process for moving judicial nominees is simple enough. A president takes the lead on circuit court nominees, while, per longstanding tradition, a senator kickstarts the process for district court nominees, which make up the bulk of the federal court system. Senators make recommendations from their home states, and the president works with them to get at least some of the nominees confirmed — the idea being that senators, regardless of party, are motivated to advocate for nominees from their states. The White House may look at other nominees on its own, but typically won’t move forward without input from the corresponding senators. Once a nominee is submitted to the Senate, he or she receives a vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee. If approved, the nomination heads to the Senate floor for a full vote.

According to a fact sheet from the Alliance for Justice, the majority of judicial vacancies without nominees are in states with one or more Republican senators (24 in states with two Republican senators, 17 in states with 1 Republican and one Democratic senator). Some of those states, like Texas and Arizona, have judicial vacancies that have been open for more than 1,000 days, without their Republican senators recommending potential nominees.

In total, 25 of the 61 vacancies without nominees are in states with two Republican senators, and another 14 are in states with one Republican senator and one Democratic senator. Seventeen are in states with two Democratic senators, and the remaining five are in other districts. That means many of the vacancies without nominees can be traced back to Senate Republicans who just aren’t participating in the process — a reality that flies in the face of Republicans’ chief complaint that Obama isn’t putting forward enough judicial nominees.

“It’s disingenuous at best for Republicans to complain about the number of judicial vacancies without nominees when Republicans themselves are responsible for the majority of those vacancies,” said Michelle Schwartz, director of Justice Programs for Alliance for Justice. “Nearly two-thirds of the vacancies without nominees are in states with at least one Republican senator, most of whom have consistently refused to work with the White House in good faith to identify qualified candidates.”

It’s not hard to figure out what Senate Republicans are up to here. Some of it’s just good old fashioned “payback,” for Democrats blocking nominations during the George W. Bush administration. But a big part of it is about blocking Obama’s effort to shift the rightward tilt of our courts, starting with powerful U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, where four vacancies leave the second-most-powerful court in the country with a Republican majority. Republicans blocked Obama’s previous nominee for 2 1/2 years, before the nomination was finally withdrawn.

President Obama has pressed senators from both parties in recent weeks to confirm a new federal judge for one of the country’s most powerful courts, using an aggressive strategy to campaign for a judicial nominee whom White House officials consider a potentially crucial figure in boosting the president’s second-term agenda.

The effort reflects a new White House effort to tilt in its favor the conservative-dominated U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which is one notch below the Supreme Court and considers many challenges to executive actions.

… Giving liberals a greater say on the D.C. Circuit is important for Obama as he looks for ways to circumvent the Republican-led House and a polarized Senate on a number of policy fronts through executive order and other administrative procedures.

The D.C. Circuit, with four Republican and three Democratic appointees, has four vacancies. It proved an obstacle for Obama during his first term – blocking proposed rules, for instance, to curb interstate air pollution and enhance cigarette labeling. The court also has put on hold dozens of cases relating to rules on workers’ rights, and it has challenged the president’s authority to name recess appointees.

For working Americans and their families, vacancies and the conservative majority on the D.C. Circuit Court has serious consequences. In January of this year, the conservative majority on the D.C. Circuit Court ruled that President Obama’s recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board were invalid. The president resorted to the recess appointments after Republicans blocked nominations, to keep the NLRB from issuing rulings. In March, the court’s conservative majority overturned an NRLB requirement that employers put up posters explaining to workers that they have a right to unionize, because it violated employers “freedom of speech.”

Naturally, Republicans want to keep the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia stacked with conservatives.

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals is known for its conservative leanings. Republicans like it this way and have filibustered nominations of non-conservative-movement nominees to the court. Now four seats are vacant. An April editorial in the Washington Post, Republicans’ D.C. Circuit barricade, explains,

LAST MONTH Senate Republicans unjustifiably blocked an up-or-down confirmation vote on Caitlin J. Halligan, nominated by President Obama to fill one of four empty spots on one of the country’s top courts, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Despite her impeccable credentials and the support of conservative legal luminaries, only a single Republican voted to break a GOP filibuster.

Again, Republicans are keeping four seats on this court vacant in order to keep these kinds of rulings coming.

In their continued efforts to block President Obama from doing what voters elected him to do — and what they failed to convince voters to elect them to do — Republicans are courting disaster for million of Americans, by keeping our nations courts and government agencies running on empty.

Republicans in Congress have a new tactic for shrinking government: making sure that nobody’s there to run it. Well into the president’s second term, an alarming and unprecedented number of vital positions in every branch of government remain vacant. As Republicans use and abuse processes that helped government run smoothly once upon a time not so very long ago, government grinds to a halt, and the consequences trickle down to Main Street America. And apparently that’s just fine with Republicans.

As President Obama settles into his second term, a number of presidentially-appointed positions that require Senate confirmation remain vacant – more than were vacant at the end of Bill Clinton’s and George W. Bush’s first terms in office. Of the 68 positions that remained vacant at the end of Obama’s first term in office, 43 had been vacant for more than a year. Those vacancies, spread across several agencies, have the effect of nearly bringing government to a griding halt. Agencies operating under acting directors, without fully authorized leadership, effectively operate in “stand-down mode”

The lack of appointed leaders can create problems. Too many vacancies can put agencies “in stand-down, waiting for policymakers to show up,” said Terry Sullivan, a political science professor at the University of North Carolina who has studied appointments.

Acting heads of agencies “don’t make any big decisions,” said Cal Mackenzie, a professor of government at Colby College who has studied appointments since the 1970s. “Your authority is not going to be recognized in the same way a Senate-confirmed appointee is going to be recognized.”

Therein lies the problem. In a 2010 Brookings Institution paper titled “A Half-Empty Government Can’t Govern: Why Everyone Wants to Fix the Appointments Process, Why It Never Happens, and How We Can Get It Done,” E.J. Dionne and William A. Galston describe a system clogged by abuses of the Senate confirmation process, and end up weakening both the executive and legislative branches, and alter the very structure of our government.

Abuses of the confirmation process, far from strengthening the executive’s accountability to the legislative branch, instead call forth ever more creative executive actions to get around Congressional scrutiny. And that creativity has, in turn, led to an executive branch potentially weaker and less able to control and influence the departments and agencies it depends on to implement its policies.

Without any formal Constitutional change, the very structure of the American government is being altered. A confirmation process designed to safeguard Congress’ prerogatives has, in important ways, undermined them.

As we know all too well by now, Senators wield considerable power over confirmations. Individual Senators can single-handedly shut down the whole “terrible, horrible, no-good Senate confirmation process” by placing “holds” on confirmations, which amount to “silent filibusters” that prevent a vote unless the Senate can round of a two-thirds majority and squeeze in time for debate. Republicans have used such “holds,” and exploited every trick in the book to keep block President Obama’s nominees.

Most recently, Republicans on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee refused to even show up for a vote on the nomination of Gina McCarthy to head the Environmental Protection agency. Republicans resorted to the parliamentary equivalent of holding their breath, because they claimed McCarthy failed to comply with their “very reasonable” request that she answer over 1,000 questions (a record number, which The Daily Beast’s Michael Tomasky labeled “the new McCarthyism.” ). Republicans notified Democrats 30 minutes before the hearing that they would not show up to hear the answers they complained about getting.

(McCarthy’s not alone. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew received 444 questions from senators before his confirmation; more than the last seven nominees combined.)

The Republican’s “boycott” of McCarthy Hearing was merely a tactic employed in the service of the underlying GOP agenda: making sure the EPA could not fulfill its mission. Republicans aren’t going to confirm McCarthy unless she stoops to answer their questions about the “underlying data used to justify EPA’s job-killing regulations,” and promises to force the EPA to subject everything it does to a “business-friendly analysis,” and force the agency to undertake a “whole economy” cost-benefit analysis of its rules and regulations. The result would be enough bureaucratic red tape to ensure that the EPA did almost nothing else. By insisting on conditions that no nominee to head the agency is likely to agree to, the GOP could ensure that the EPA operates in “stand-down” mode for the duration of Obama’s presidency.

The vacancies on the National Labor Relations Board are another example of how GOP obstructionist tactics are impacting government.

After President Obama took office anti-union Senators rolled out a strategy of blocking confirmation of any appointees to the NLRB to keep the agency from having a quorum so it could not operate.

In 2010 the anti-union judges on the Supreme Court ruled that the NLRB could not issue rulings without at least three confirmed members.

Anti-union Senators continued to block confirmations to the NLRB.

In January, 2012 President Obama made recess appointments to the NLRB to enable it to operate again.

In January, 2013 anti-union judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled that recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) were unconstitutional.

(As Dave’s post points out, the courts play a huge role in this, Republican obstruction of court appointments has far-reaching implications that are better addressed in a separate post.)

The list of top-level vacancies is long and disturbing.

• The IRS has been without an appointed commissioner since last November, when Bush administration holdover Douglas Shulman resigned.
• A quarter of the senior positions at the State Department remain unfilled.
• Republicans blocked President Obama’s appointees to Election Assistance Commission — an agency charged with helping Americans vote, and which Republicans wanted to do away with in 2011.
• The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services hasn’t had a director since 2006, and still doesn’t since Republicans blocked a vote on Donald Berwick’s nomination. (Obama managed a recess appointment for Berwick, who has since resigned.)
• A hearing on Tom Perez’s nomination as Secretary of Labor was postponed after Republicans threatened to invoke an obscure procedural rule to stop the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee from meeting. The move was driven purely by objections to Perez’s “ideological background.”
• Republicans are attempting to sabotage health care reform by refusing to offer Republican nominees to the Independent Payment Advisory Board, charged with achieving savings in Medicare without sacrificing quality.

Without a presidentially-appointed, Senate confirmed director, the EPA can’t effectively fulfill its mission to “protect human health and the environment.” The NRLB cannot effectively safeguard “employees’ rights to organize and to determine whether to have unions as their bargaining representative, if it lacks enough members to operate. Health Care Reform can’t be fully implemented, and thus can’t help 32 million uninsured Americans, if the agencies that must implement it are without leaders who have the authority to set policy.

All of this is just fine with Republicans in Congress. Keeping government running on empty by keeping offices vacant, through ongoing obstruction of presidential nominees, is a tactic that serves the conservative agenda.

It’s not that the GOP is “no longer a serious partner in governing,” as a New York Times editorial put it. That which Republicans didn’t win the right to govern last November, they have resolved to make ungovernable. But Republicans aren’t just disrupting the agenda that won President Obama a second term. By keeping vital government positions vacant, they are implementing an un-mandated shrinking of government.

Conservatives have always said that government doesn’t work, when they really believe that it shouldn’t work. Given enough power to do so, once elected they set about making damn sure government can’t work. And, like I said earlier, government can’t work if there’s nobody around to run it.