The Impact of Noel Canning

Steven D. Schwinn, John Marshall Law School

Richard Trumka, head of the AFL-CIO, put out a statement today in reaction to the Court's ruling in Noel Canning, which struck President Obama's recess appointments to the NLRB.  He said, correctly, that "[t]he impact of today's ruling is far less than it might have been, because there is now a full complement of Senate-confirmed members of the NLRB and a Senate-confrimed NLRB general counsel." 

But there's another reason that the impact of today's decision is less than it might have been: the Senate's limitation on the use of the filibuster.  That limitation, a Senate rules change from last fall, should also blunt today's ruling.  That's because the President won't have to use recess appointments as much to dodge Senate minority obstruction on nominees, because the principle tool for that obstruction, the filibuster, is now limited to legislation and Supreme Court nominees, not executive nominees and lower federal judges.

Sean Higgins at the Washington Examiner makes a similar point, and argues that the ruling today is merely a set-back for unions at the NLRB (because they'll have to relitigate all the cases the NLRB decided with its recess-appointees).  (This applies to other agencies, too, with recess appointees that are invalid under today's ruling.)  The bigger fight, over the filibuster and actual appointees to the NLRB, has already been won by the President.