On September 18, 2013, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee will hold an executive session at which it will discuss the nomination of Richard Griffin to be General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board.  It will also take up the nominations of Chai Feldblum to serve as a Commissioner of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and Scott Dahl to be Inspector General of the Department of Labor.

The nomination of Griffin to be NLRB General Counsel may be controversial.  Griffin was one of the President’s recess appointments to the NLRB in January 2012, which were held invalid by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in Noel Canning v. NLRB, now pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.  A number of Republican Senators opposed Griffin’s nomination to be a confirmed NLRB Member.  As part of a deal to avoid the “nuclear option” regarding the fillibuster, Griffin’s nomination to be a Board Member was withdrawn by the President in July 2013.  It is unclear whether Griffin’s later nomination to be General Counsel was part of the July 2013 deal.