US Senator Bill Cassidy Lambasts Julie Su Labor Nomination

Louisiana Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy took to the U.S. Senate floor Monday evening to lambast President Biden’s Labor Department Secretary nomination of Julie Su, erstwhile chief of California’s preternaturally awful Employment Development Department.

“We should ask questions about how Ms. Su presided over a mismanaged California unemployment insurance program during the pandemic, and why California paid $31 (N.B -estimates range up to more than $40 billion) billion in fraudulent claims while she chose to suspend the eligibility determination process,” said Cassidy, the ranking Republican member of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions committee that Su’s nomination must pass through.  

“To put into context, DOL’s requested budget is $15 billion dollars and employs more than 17,000 people,” noted Cassidy.  “This means that Ms. Su lost more than double the annual budget of the agency she will be responsible for managing in Washington D.C. This calls into question her qualifications as a manager. “

In fact, the EDD still owes the feds (as of midnight Friday) $18,885,179,846.62 in principal and interest, which is also more – about $3 billion more –  than the Department of Labor’s total annual budget.

Cassidy also called into question a move made by Su – who has been the senior deputy in the Labor department for about two years – to try modify federal rules without congressional approval to mimic California’s AB 5 law, a law which devastated the freelance and gig economy in the state.

“During her tenure as Deputy Secretary of Labor, essentially the agency’s “Chief Operating Officer,” the Biden Administration pushed to eliminate independent contracting via federal executive rulemaking,” Cassidy said.  “There was no hope of ever getting an AB 5-like law through Congress, so they pursued their goals through regulation.  If finalized, the new regulation would strip 21 million individuals of their ability to classify themselves as independent contractors and enjoy the flexibility it provides.”

While still in California, besides catastrophizing the EDD, Su was both a firm advocate and a zealous enforcer of AB 5 regulations and currently favors a bill in Congress known as the PRO Act which, in part, would make the draconian anti-independent contractor regulations federal law.

“We don’t need the application of law from one of the most liberal states in the nation on a national level. A law rejected (N.B. – under severe public pressure, the law has been modified many times to exempt certain types of workers and polling data shows it to be extremely unpopular) in California is not a policy that we should be pursuing on a federal level,” Cassidy said.  “We need to support the rights of workers and their ability to choose what’s best for them, not put them in a straitjacket serving other people’s goals.”

Su also supports the concept of holding franchisees (the local independent owner of a national chain, for example a McDonald’s or two) jointly responsible with the parent group on many employee-related matters.  Currently, the local outlets operate separately as the small businesses they are – this proposed change in that relationship would allow labor groups to unionize an entire chain in one fell swoop rather than having to go store-by-store, a huge gift the Big Labor.

Su is also a proponent of “social justice unionism,” a concept that sees unions as more than bargaining units trying to do the best they can to improve employee wages, benefits, and working conditions.  “Social Justice” unions play politics far afield from labor issues and delve into campaigns surrounding hot-button progressive topics like “equity,” boycotting Israel, gender issues, and the like.

When confirmed as the chief deputy, Su squeaked through on a straight party-line Senate vote, 50 to 47; however it is not clear she will retain the support of moderate Democrats who may have been fine with her being a deputy but worried about her actually being in charge of the department.

Su’s confirmation hearings are expected to begin next months; sadly, if the trend of incompetent Californians failing up continues – Eric Garcetti, Kamala Harris, Xavier Becerra, etc. – she may stand a good chance.