Dem
47
GOP
53
Sens. Joe Manchin (I-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) are not Democrats anymore. And, in case anyone forgot, they provided a demonstration of that fact late last week.
As he prepares to exit, stage right, Joe Biden is trying to seat a handful of key appointments that will last beyond Jan. 20. One of the most important was chair of the National Labor Relations Board, the entity that mediates disputes between employers and labor. The current chair is Democratic appointee Lauren McFerran, who is very labor-friendly, and whose presence on the board gives Democratic appointees a 3-2 majority. Since McFerran has already been doing the job for 5 years, Biden thought it would be a good choice to have her do it for another 5 years. That would also mean a Democratic majority on the board for the first 2 years of Donald Trump's upcoming term.
Senate Republicans do not want that, and so they've been very good about attendance, to keep the Democrats from getting McFerran through. On a day that only one Republican was absent (Roger Marshall of Mississippi), Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) scheduled a procedural vote on the nomination. Basically, what Schumer needed was for either Sinema or Manchin to stay away and cast no vote. That would have left it 49-49, and the tie would have been broken by President of the Senate Kamala Harris.
When Schumer brought the vote to the floor, he liked his chances, because Manchin was elsewhere in Washington at a function, while Sinema, who has basically checked out, hadn't shown up for a vote since September 21. So much for that, though. Sinema made her first appearance on the Senate floor in months, and cast a "nay" vote. And once he heard the news that Sinema had emerged from her fortress of solitude, Manchin hustled across town to cast the deciding, fatal vote. So the nomination failed, 49-50.
Manchin explained that he cast his vote as he did because McFerran supports an updated joint-employer rule that would make it easier for employees to claim they work for multiple employers (say, a temp agency AND the firm that hired their services from the temp agency). This would potentially create additional obligations for businesses, like leaving both employers on the hook for worker's compensation. Manchin does not like things that make life harder for business interests.
As to Sinema, as per usual, she did not explain herself. Maybe she cast her vote out of spite. Or, maybe she's become considerably more conservative over the past 6 years. Or, maybe she looks forward to a lucrative and easy post-Senate career serving on corporate boards, and she wants to maximize those paychecks. Could be any, though we have a pretty strong leaning as to which one it is. (Z)