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.