Lorelei Boylan, Presidential Obama's controversial nominee to
serve as the administrator of the Department of Labor's Wage and
Hour Division, has been
withdrawn, according to the White House website.
During her time in the New York Labor Department, Boylan ran an
initiative, devised by Patricia Smith -- another Obama appointee
-- which tasked union members with policing the behavior of
businesses. As Americans for Limited Government wrote in a report
earlier this year (pdf):
The enforcement initiative essentially deputizes private
entities, such as ACORN, to do enforcement work through "formal
partnerships" with the state. Groups participating in this
initiative are given a specific geographic zone to patrol, are
provided with training and literature, and are assigned a
designated contact person to which they provide "referrals"
when they find what they decide are violations of wage and hour
laws....
The vast majority of the groups participating in this
initiative are either labor unions or labor union affiliated
entities. The notion of labor bosses patrolling a beat instead
of Labor Department officials has caused New York business
groups to take note and express serious concern. A group of
business associations made their concerns known stating, "To
give quasi-enforcement capabilities to certain, seemingly
hand-selected constituencies sets a troubling precedent that
could spread among the spectrum of state agencies. We wonder
how such an effort can create an atmosphere of anything other
than vigilantism where every honest employer will have a
legitimate concern for the preservation of his or her rights as
a taxpaying business owner in the state of New York. The image
painted by the Department in its January 26 release is of a
posse of activists, duly deputized by the weighty imprimatur of
the Department, demanding access to any employer in the state
whom they have chosen either at random, by will, or by
prejudice."
The nomination of Boylan's partner in the New York scheme,
Patricia Smith, still remains intact. Smith was nominated to be
Solicitor of Labor, the third highest official in the department,
and the one who is in charge of offering legal advice. Sen. Mike
Enzi has put a hold on the nomination, meaning 60 votes will be
required to block a filibuster and get her confirmed.
