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Unions, Democrats Win One, Eugene Scalia Bows Out
Jim Burns
Senior Staff Writer
Scalia, the son of a U.S. Supreme Court justice, was nominated by President Bush in 2001 to become solicitor at the Department of Labor (DOL). When the Democratic-controlled Senate blocked a vote on Scalia's nomination, President Bush gave him a recess appointment in January 2002, an appointment that expires this month.
Scalia will return to the private sector, where he worked as a labor lawyer before entering government service. Howard Radzely, currently the department's deputy solicitor, will succeed Scalia at Labor.
Labor unions, allied with the Democrats, had long complained about Scalia's opposition to workplace rules dealing with ergonomics.
Dr. John Baker, a presidential scholar at Louisiana State University, believes Scalia was right to step down because a Senate confirmation battle would have been bruising.
"Democrats, although a minority, would still go after him since punishing him is their way of trying to punish his father. That's the reality of it," Baker told CNSNews.com. "They (the Democrats) play hardball, and the GOP doesn't," Baker said.
Scalia's father Antonin is one of the most conservative members of the nation's highest court and was part of the Supreme Court majority that ended the Florida presidential recount in 2000 that effectively handed Bush the presidency.
The National Right To Work Foundation believes union pressure blocked Eugene Scalia from getting a full-fledged appointment, according to spokesman Dan Cronin. "The unions were barking on the Senate to keep Scalia from getting in," he said.
"Hopefully, Howard Radzely, with new leadership in the Senate, will be able to get through," Cronin said.
"The new solicitor should aggressively pursue rampant union corruption and get serious about addressing the other abuses of compulsory unionism. It is high time that the [Department of Labor] get back on the side of working Americans rather than push the agenda of abusive union officials, which it has done over past years," Cronin concluded.
The solicitor is the Labor Department's principal legal officer and is responsible for enforcing more than 180 laws that provide basic worker protections in areas such as safety and health, minimum wages, equal employment opportunity and pension security.
"We have some notable accomplishments," Scalia said, "including the department's assistance in resolving the labor dispute on the West Coast ports; steps taken to improve the department's enforcement and regulatory programs; and internal changes that I hope will be of lasting value.
"I have concluded, however, that now is an appropriate time for me to leave the department and take on other challenges," he concluded in a statement.
"Gene Scalia has made an invaluable contribution to this Department and its efforts to help American workers," said Labor Secretary Elaine Chao. "He has served his country well, and we will miss him greatly."
The White House did not return calls Tuesday seeking further comment on this story.
The AFL-CIO and the Teamsters union did not have any comment Tuesday about Scalia's resignation.
But when Bush first nominated Scalia in 2001, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said he was the "wrong person for the job."
"He has worked to kill or weaken worker safety standards nationally, as well as in California, North Carolina, and Washington. In his personal writings, he has criticized the science underlying ergonomics as junk science par excellence and quackery," said Sweeney.
Sweeney also said Scalia is "an individual whose extreme views on key worker protections place him outside the mainstream and make him unsuited to hold this important position. Eugene Scalia is simply the wrong person for the job."
The United Auto Workers union (UAW) Tuesday did not issue a formal statement. One spokesman who did not want to be identified said: "We sure didn't like him."
Meanwhile, the White House still hasn't said if Otto Reich, another controversial recess appointment, would be re-nominated to serve as assistant secretary of state for western hemispheric affairs. He served in that position until last November when his appointment expired.
When asked if Reich would be re-nominated by President Bush when the new Congress convenes, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said last month: "I just don't speculate about potential appointments on any position, unless there is an announcement to be made."
Reich, a Cuban-American and a strident anti-Communist, has irritated Democrats, including former Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.), because of his support for the Cuban economic embargo and the Nicaraguan Contra rebels in the 1980s, who fought against the Sandinista government that was later deposed.
Recently, two members of Congress, Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Lincoln Diaz-Balart, both Florida Republicans and Cuban exiles, called on the Bush administration to re-nominate Reich. But Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) indicated that Reich did not have enough votes to win confirmation.
Stephen Hess, a presidential scholar at the Brookings Institution, said it's possible the Bush White House is pre-occupied with other, more important issues.
"Sometimes, you do the best you can, and you are not going to win some, and you move to other things. Some folks care a great deal about both of these appointments, but in truth, it's hard to claim, given what's going on in Iraq and in North Korea and the economy. I just don't know how much he will spend (on the nominations)," said Hess.
"He (Bush) just has a lot on his platter," Hess added.
The U.S. Constitution gives the president the power during Senate recesses to install nominees without Senate approval, until the end of the next session of Congress.
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