As we noted earlier this week, President Barack Obama nominated two hard-line union militants to the National Labor Relations Board. Now, President Bush's inability to properly staff the five-member Board during his eight years in the Oval Office has come home to roost.

According to the Associated Press, the U.S. Court of Appeals for Washington, D.C. Circuit ruled that decisions of the NLRB last year (approximately 300 in total) are not valid because only two of the five seats were filled.  In other words, there was no valid quorum, even if the two members agreed how to rule.  (A less influential federal circuit court ruled two member board decision are valid, so the circuit court split may lead to U.S. Supreme Court review)

Either way, the fact that the Board was comprised of a mere two members for such a long time is a testimony to the total incompetence of the Bush Administration in dealing with the agency.

Bill Clinton's NLRB overturned 1200 years of precedent in an effort to make it easier for union officials to coerce workers into union ranks and misuse their forced dues on political activism.

At first, the Bush administration simply kept intact a Clinton majority on the Board for a full year after taking office. Then the Bushies kept hardened union activists like Clinton holdover Wilma Liebman (who Obama has since named Board chairman) on the Board, while nominating soft and inexperienced Republican appointees.

As a result, the Bush Board was unable to get itself moving to reverse most of the controversial rulings of the activist Clinton Board.

After years of foolish efforts to cozy up to certain union bosses combined with a Keystone Cop-like incompetence with respect their NLRB nomination strategy, Bush and his staff simply gave up trying to fill the Board's vacancies in mid 2007 and failed to make recess appointments.

The union bosses must be ecstatic about their good fortune. For nearly a decade, a resurgent Big Labor had its way with this Bush Administration.  And now they've got one of their own in the White House, and the payback has already begun.

Big Labor knows how important the NLRB is to its forced unionism power over the American workplace and economy.  You can bet the Obama administration will not make similar mistakes.

Yesterday President Bush issued an Exectuive Order exempting several agencies and subdivisions of the Energy, Homeland Security, Justice, Transportation, and Treasury departments from draconian and stifling federal labor-management relations strictures.

This is good policy. However, while freeing any worker from forced union monopoly bargaining is a welcome step, the last-minute move begs the question: What took so long?

Unfortunately, making this common-sense change on the way out the door cheapens it, making it appear to be little more than political retaliation. The administration should have made this and many more pro-individual-rights moves long ago. Instead, the incompetent political managers in the White House thought that making policy concessions to the union bosses would have bought their support. How wrong they were.

Foundation attorneys have long advocated for freeing national security employees from forced unionization, including fighting for the rights of airport screeners to remain free from union monopoly control.

There are other recent examples of Administration officials foolishly failing to agressively protect employee free choice. There are big political lessons to be learned here.

The Bush Administration is arguing Big Labor's legal positions in court again.

Right to Work supporters recall the Bush Administration's lousy record when it comes to employee free choice and worker freedom. Solicitor General Paul Clement seemed to take pleasure in parroting union lawyer talking points in important legal proceedings like Davenport v. Washington Education Association. Before resigning in May, Clement took another swipe at employee freedom in Locke v. Karass, another Foundation case going to the Supreme Court.

Clement's successor, Acting Solicitor General Gregory Garre, appears to be picking up where Clement left off. On Friday, Garre filed a motion with the Supreme Court to participate in oral arguments in Locke. Worse, Garre wants to cut into time already allocated to Foundation attorneys.

In Locke, Foundation attorneys are representing 20 Maine state employees who contend that the union which "represents" them -- the Maine State Employees Association (MSEA) -- is violating their First Amendment rights by sending part of their forced dues to a giant union slush fund which the affiliated Service Employees International Union (SEIU) can use to finance costly litigation, even though such litigation does not directly impact the state employees' own bargaining unit. SEIU is one of the most radical and politically militant national unions.

On Monday, the Foundation filed its opposition to the federal government's motion, making several important points to challenge both the SG's motion to participate and the motion for divided argument.

The Acting Solicitor General has failed to adequately demonstrate the government's concrete interest in the case. Importantly, no federal statute is at stake. Garre's motion claims the government's interest by vaguely pointing to the Secretary of Labor's responsibility to advise the President on labor policy and carry out Congressional policy and to the National Labor Relations Act, though Garre even contradictorily argues in the motion "that questions arising under the NLRA are distinguishable from this case."

The High Court has the option to simply extend time for oral arguments, but Garre wants to cut into the time of both the Foundation attorneys and MSEA lawyers -- even though the Court's rules permit divided arguments "only in the most extraordinary circumstances." But of the 22 pages of argument in the Solicitor's amicus brief, 17 are devoted to opposing the pro-worker legal position taken by Foundation attorneys.

Moreover, the MSEA cites the Solicitor's arguments 14 times in its own brief. If the Court grants the government's motion, it would "deny the Employees their full opportunity to present their views."

The Bush administration's stance in Locke is inexplicable. With only a few more months before he leaves office, Bush has no electoral reason to try to appease Big Labor (not that Republican appeasement of union bosses works out very well). But as the Acting Solicitor General's motion demonstrates, the Bush administration doesn't have enough significant legal interest either.

Yet, the Solicitor General's office persists in going out of its way to undercut the rights of nonunion employees forced to pay dues as a condition of employment, despite the administration's supposed support of the Right to Work. So once again we have to observe the old saying: With "friends" like these... who needs enemies?

And the Solicitor General's office can't say it doesn't know the harm it is doing. Its demand for oral argument time comes after the Foundation asked it to withdraw its legal brief because, if the Justices took it seriously, it would do serious harm to employees' rights.

Instead, Foundation attorneys may now find themselves arguing not only against Big Labor's lawyers, but also against the Bush Administration.

Solicitor General Paul Clement resigned yesterday after seven years with the Bush Administration. As reported by Tony Mauro on the Legal Times blog, Right to Work advocates are thrilled to see him go:

"Paul Clement did not leave soon enough," said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation in a statement. "He kicked the cause of employee freedom from compulsory unionism in the teeth once again before heading out the door."

Clement's latest offense against the right-to-work movement was a brief he filed with the Supreme Court May 12 in Locke v. Karass, which the Court will consider next term. The foundation is supporting 20 Maine state employees who object to their compulsory agency fees being used to fund nationwide union litigation far removed from the workers' local bargaining concerns. Clement's brief says it is constitutional for fees to be used in at least some kinds of pooling arrangements with other unions for litigation, though it suggests limits on the use. His brief can be found here.

The standard Clement uses is not good enough, says Gleason, who asks on his blog "Is Bush's Top Lawyer Taking Orders from Big Labor?" He says Clement has been soft on unions in past right-to-work cases as well.

No word yet on the reason for Clement's departure. But it was none too soon for rank-and-file workers under Big Labor's thumb. Clement joins the ranks of other ex-Bush administration officials -- such as DOL's former General Counsel Andrew Siff -- who used their positions to deliver goodies to the union bosses.

U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement, the Bush administration's top lawyer, has just inflicted more damage on America's working men and women laboring under compulsory unionism. Does President Bush even know what his administration's lawyer is doing?

This week, the too-clever-by-half lawyer filed a brief in the National Right to Work Foundation's latest pending U.S. Supreme Court case, Locke v. Karass, and has taken a position that surely must please the union bosses. The High Court in Locke will examine the criteria for determining how much non-union members must pay to a union where they do not enjoy the fundamental protection of a Right to Work law.

Foundation attorneys argue that the U.S. Constitution does not permit the forced extraction of dues or fees for any expenses not directly tied to representational activity in the employees' actual bargaining unit.

But Mr. Clement apparently has no issue with forcing Maine state workers to pay for union activism anywhere in the world, so long as the union satisfies a vague and weak two-part test. In practical terms, Clement's standard would further empower union bosses to charge workers for almost anything under the sun, unless a worker gets a lawyer and forces them to prove that the forced fees are being used for narrowly prescribed purposes.

This is not the first time that U.S. Solicitor General Clement has taken positions supportive of compulsory unionism. He adopted the AFL-CIO's position and seriously undermined employee freedom during oral argument in the Foundation's Davenport v. WEA case at the U.S. Supreme Court.

With "friends" like Bush's Solicitor General, who needs enemies?