US Supreme Court Review: Two Labor Law Cases (Noel Canning and Harris v. Quinn)

US Supreme Court OT2013 logo(This is another post in our series, Looking Back at the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2013 Term.) Last month I commenced a series of posts of the United States Supreme Court’s labor and employment law decisions last term by blogging on the Court’s decision in the First Amendment public employee free speech case of Lane v. Franks, No. 13-483 (June 19, 2014).  In two separate blog posts, I will comment on two labor law Court decisions (NLRB v. Noel Canning and Harris v. Quinn) and two employee benefit/ERISA decisions (Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. and Fifth Third Bancorp v. Dudenhoeffer).  This post discusses the labor law cases.

To begin, National Labor Relations Board v. Noel Canning, 134 S. Ct. 2550 (June 26, 2014), is obviously much more than just an ordinary labor law case.  Yes, it concerns the validity of decisions made by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB or Board) when it had a quorum based solely on presidential recess appointments from roughly January 2012 through August 2013.  More specifically, on January 4, 2012, President Obama, faced with the prospect of another two-member Board (see below why this is a problem), used his constitutional recess appointment powers to make three intra-recess appointments.  In an effort to prevent any intra-session appointments, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives refused to give its consent to the Democratic-controlled Senate to go into recess.  See U.S. Const. Art. II, sec. 5 (“[n]either House, during the session of Congress, shall, without the consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days . . . .”).  In response, the Senate held very brief, pro forma sessions in which no business was conducted.

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The Likely and the Less Likely — Insights from the New Law School Poll

The Registered and the Likely – maybe that could be the name of a political soap opera, although I doubt it would attract high ratings in the general public. But it would attract high ratings among those involved in election campaigns and those eager to understand those campaigns and politics overall.

New results from the Marquette Law School Poll, released Wednesday, put the Registered and the Likely in the spotlight. Among 815 registered voters across the state, Republican Gov. Scott Walker led Democratic challenger Mary Burke 47.5 percent to 44.1 percent in the race for governor. But among 609 participants in the poll who were labeled likely to vote in November, Burke led Walker, 48.6 percent to 46.5 percent.

So who’s ahead, Walker or Burke? The best answer is that it’s too close to say – by both measures, the race is within the margin of error of the poll.

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Prox and the Poll

Senator ProxmireHe died more than nine years ago, but the spirit of the late U.S. Senator William Proxmire lives on in Wisconsin. The proof can be found in the latest Marquette Law School Poll, which suggests that someone like Proxmire, a political maverick if there ever was one, might play well in Wisconsin today. More on that in a moment, but first a couple of thoughts on what this latest survey tells us.

Today’s Marquette Law School Poll tends to complicate the national narrative about Wisconsin: that we’re a hyper-polarized state with voters split almost equally between Republican red and Democratic blue. While voting patterns certainly seem to support that claim, the poll results point to an electorate with a considerably more nuanced view of the world, replete with mixed messages that are sure to cause a lot of head-scratching among political pundits. Case in point: the poll finds that 54 percent of voters feel the state is moving in the right direction, which for the last three-and-a-half years, has been a distinctly conservative one. But on a number of key issues, Wisconsin voters agree with positions favored by Democrats. They support a hike in the minimum wage and accepting federal dollars to expand Medicaid. They don’t like outsourcing. They think tax cuts favor the wealthy. They want to know more about whose deep pockets are funding political campaigns. Past polls have also shown majority support for repealing the state’s same-sex marriage ban.

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