Bad news for the Obama Administration and its battle over recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board. An opinion issued today by the Supreme Court in the matter of NLRB v. Noel Canning says that what were positioned as recess appointments to the board are invalid, possibly invalidating hundreds of the board’s decisions.
Noel Canning, a Pepsi-Cola distributor, previously asked the D. C. Circuit to set aside an order of the NLRB, claiming that the board lacked a quorum because three of the five Board members had been invalidly appointed. The nominations of the three members in question were pending in the Senate when it passed a Dec. 17, 2011, resolution providing for a series of “pro forma sessions,” with “no business transacted,” every Tuesday and Friday through January 20, 2012.
