On July 19, the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) approved the nominations of Marvin Kaplan and William Emanuel to serve on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Both votes occurred along party lines.

Ahead of the vote, ABC sent a letter to Chairman Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Ranking Member Sen. Patty Murray (R-Wash.) urging the HELP Committee to approve the nominees and move quickly to bring the nominations to the floor for a vote. In the letter, ABC said, “The president has nominated two highly qualified candidates who can restore balance to the NLRB. Mr. Kaplan, counsel to the commissioner of the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission, and Mr. Emanuel, a shareholder at the law firm Littler Mendelson P.C. in Los Angeles, are experts in the field of labor relations. Together they have decades of experience interpreting the NLRA in a manner that is balanced and without favor to political party.” 

The Senate HELP Committee held a hearing on the nominations July 13. ABC, along with the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace, submitted a letter for the record in support of Kaplan and Emanuel.

The nominations will now go before the full U.S. Senate and will be voted on at a date yet to be determined. If confirmed, the NLRB will have all five seats filled for the first time since August, 2015. The NLRB currently has one Republican and two Democratic members, and filling the two open seats will restore the board to its intended purpose of acting as a neutral umpire after years of the current Democrat-controlled board upsetting long-standing NLRB precedent and creating uncertainty for businesses and employees.