Senate Republicans on Thursday will confront President Biden’s progressive nominee to lead the Labor Department on her past work as California’s labor chief and support for policies that they say hurt American workers and businesses alike.
Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su, who is filling in at the top job after former Secretary Marty Walsh left, will be the first Cabinet-level nominee to come before the Senate since the president’s first round of appointments were considered after he took office in 2021.
She’s appearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, chaired by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. She’s already got the backing of the Democratic Socialist senator, who called Su an excellent candidate in a statement announcing her hearing.
But spokesperson for the top Republican on the committee, Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, told Fox News Digital the senator will “lay out an important question before the committee regarding Julie Su’s nomination. Does her record indicate that she will be a responsible, experienced administrator of the department or will she act as an activist to promote a political agenda?”
Republicans are expected to hit Su for supporting tighter employment regulations in California when she ran the state’s main labor agency, which they say makes her an enemy of both companies and employees, as well as the roughly $40 billion lost by way of fraudulent unemployment payments in California during COVID-19.
According to Cassidy’s spokesman on the committee, the senator will also swing at Su for her lack of “direct experience negotiating or handling labor disputes.”
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“Setting his politics aside, Marty Walsh had significant experience in negotiations and managing organizations,” Cassidy will say in his prepared remarks. “That experience is important. But now, with 150 labor contracts expiring this year, the potential of replacing him with someone who has a history for bias and no direct experience handling labor disputes should be concerning to everyone.”
The think tank Americans for Prosperity (AFP) is launching a pressure campaign that appears aimed at distancing moderate Democrats from Su. That campaign includes a letter sent to all senators that opposes her nomination and a digital ad campaign launched in West Virginia, Montana, Arizona and Washington, DC.
Key Democrats representing those states – Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., Jon Tester, D-Mont., and Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz. – have not yet said how they’ll vote on Su. They’re also all up for re-election next November.
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“California ranks at or near the bottom in countless economic indicators. But one statistic where it ranks near the top is out-migration: more than half a million people have fled the state over the last two years, thanks in no small part to public policies like the ones Ms. Su has championed,” the AFP letter read. “Confirming Ms. Julie Su to lead the U.S. Department of Labor would be tantamount to taking California’s failures national. American workers simply cannot afford for you to let that happen.”
With a 51-49 split in favor of Democrats in the Senate, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer can only afford to lose the support of two of them to still successfully confirm her. If Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., does not return from her months-long medical absence in time for the vote, the margin is even smaller.
Su is backed by major unions like AFL-CIO, International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the American Federation of Teachers. Industry groups like the National Retail Federation and International Franchise Association, however, have claimed her history of supporting tougher regulatory measures would stifle business growth if she ran the Labor Department.