Trump Nominee Is Mastermind of Anti-Union Legal Campaign

While presidents nominate members of their own parties as agency chiefs, the conference tends to be studiously bipartisan in its approach. Prominent former government officials serve on the agency’s board, like Ronald Klain, a chief of staff to Vice Presidents Al Gore and Joseph R. Biden Jr., and Theodore B. Olson, who was solicitor general under Mr. Bush. A young Antonin Scalia once ran the agency.

But portions of Mr. Mitchell’s background, at least as reflected in legal arguments he has advanced, are notably conservative on culture-war issues. In a case he argued after the Supreme Court recognized same-sex marriage, Mr. Mitchell represented two Houston taxpayers who had sued the city to deny benefits to same-sex spouses of city employees.

Senate Democrats have expressed concern that the nomination of Mr. Mitchell, who represented a coalition of states in a Supreme Court case against the Environmental Protection Agency as Texas solicitor general, is part of Mr. Trump’s broader strategy to curb rule making by federal agencies.

(In written responses to senators’ questions, Mr. Mitchell said that he did not believe that the Supreme Court’s gay-marriage decision allowed governments to deny same-sex spouses benefits that opposite-sex spouses received, and that he was not out to destroy the “administrative state,” a goal some Trump advisers have espoused.)

And then there are the union cases, which Mr. Mitchell filed after his nomination to head the conference, and which could also suggest a free-market worldview hostile to regulation.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat who opposed the nomination in the Judiciary Committee, said Mr. Mitchell’s role in the cases raised questions about his suitability for the federal position.

“Mr. Mitchell has given us no information about how he got involved in these cases and who is backing them financially,” he said. “If he is a clandestine operative of the same powerful ultraconservative special interests out to cripple unions, he is not fit to serve in this post.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/18/business/economy/union-fees-lawyer.html?partner=rss&emc=rss