Cablevision Fights Obama Admin's Illegal NRLB Appointments

On Monday, Cablevision filed an emergency application for a stay with the Supreme Court to suspend the National Labor Relations Board actions against the company.  The Obama administration has ignored the court’s decision that Obama’s recess appointments were unconstitutional and are plowing forward with NLRB business.  The three people appointed to the board while the Senate was out of session continue to serve.

Cablevision made the following statement: 

The role of Congress is to ensure a balanced NLRB and the Obama Administration bypassed Congress in order to stack the NLRB in favor of Big Labor. Two different federal courts — the D.C. Circuit and the Third Circuit — have established that the NLRB is illegally constituted and has no authority to take action. The NLRB continues to ignore these rulings, and we ask the Supreme Court to compel the NLRB to immediately halt its unlawful proceedings against Cablevision.

The NRLB has inserted itself into a labor dispute between the Communication Workers of America and Cablevision regarding 22 workers who claim they were wrongfully terminated.  Cablevision’s emergency application wants to suspend actions as the court has ruled the board is illegally constituted and has no authority as a result. 

At the time of the ruling about Obama’s NLRB “recess” appointments, spokesman Jay Carney described the ruling “novel and unprecedented.” Carney stated, “We respectfully but strongly disagree with the rulings,” he said.

It turns out that when the Obama administration “strongly disagrees” with a court decision, they simply disregard it and the entire checks and balances system set up to keep the government from running amok is tossed aside.  Already we have seen the administration refuse to comply with the constitutionally mandated oversight by the legislative branch and now we can include the judicial branch.  The crux of the suit here is whether the executive branch can function without any accountability. 

The Supreme Court will take up the issue of the Obama’s NLRB recess appointment when they return to session.