There’s finally going to be a committee vote today on the nomination of Hilda Solis to be Secretary of Labor. It’s about time. The administration had to appoint an interim secretary because this was taking so long Republicans on the Senate Health, Educaiton, Labor and Pensions Committee have been dragging their feet, alleging that her position on the board of directors of Americans Rights at Work, a pro-labor group might have amounted to lobbying. They wanted to know if Solis actually lobbied Congress which, as one ARAW-connected person told me, was absurd because if anything she was a rather passive board member.
The Republicans are really using the Solis nomination to fight the Employee Free Choice Act. Today’s Los Angeles Times notes that Republicans now want Solis to avoid lobbying for the bill even after she becomes Labor Secretary which is like asking Tim Geithner to stay neutral about the stimulus package or Robert Gates to take a pass on Afghanistan funding. Of course when Elaine Chao was labor secretary under George W. Bush they had no problems with her advocating for the defeat of EFCA. See her Wall Street Journal op-ed here written during the last days of her tenure.
