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Dems to Issa: Withdraw NLRB Boeing subpoenas
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) should withdraw subpoenas he issued for documents related to the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) legal complaint against airplane manufacturer Boeing, a trio of veteran Democratic lawmakers said Friday.
Over the objection of Democrats on his own House Oversight Committee, Issa subpoenaed the labor oversight panel after saying the NLRB did not provide enough documents for his investigation into the panel's case against Boeing. The NLRB argues that Boeing decided to build a plant in South Carolina to retaliate for labor strikes at its existing facilities in Washington state.
But in a letter to Issa released Friday, Reps. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), George Miller (D-Calif.) and John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) said the chairman should let the legal proceeding run its course.
"We are writing to request that you withdraw the unilateral subpoena you served on Sunday to the National Labor Relations Board in light of a recent court ruling that effectively eliminates the purported basis for the committee's investigation," the Democrats wrote, referring to Seattle Administrative Law Judge Clifford Anderson's ruling in June against a motion to dismiss the NLRB case from Boeing.
Announcing the subpoenas last week, Issa said the "NLRB's action in the case against Boeing has the potential to create a job-killing precedent just as U.S. manufacturers are working toward economic recovery.
"That a Washington, D.C.-based bureaucracy could dictate the work location and parameters for a world-leading company is unprecedented in a global economy and hobbles a leading American job creator at a time of economic vulnerability," Issa said in a statement released by his office.
In a letter to Issa of his own, NLRB Acting General Counsel Lafe Solomon said the subpoeans were unnecessary because the agency has cooperated with Issa's investigation.
"To date, this office has provided the committee with more than 1,500 pages of documents that should provide sufficient information to allow the committee to assess the legal merit of the Boeing complaint," Solomon wrote to Issa. "This office has repeatedly pledged to provide information in a manner that protects the rights of the parties to the case. In keeping with our commitment, today we are providing the committee with more than 4,300 pages of additional documents now available to all parties."
However, Solomon said the NLRB continues to be "gravely concerned about the adverse effect any premature release of certain documents subject to the subpoena would have on the rights of the parties to this case to have a fair trial."
Boeing opened its new 787 plant in Charleston, S.C., in June. But if the NLRB complaint is ultimately successful, the company could be forced to build the planes it intends to build there in Seattle.
The case before the administrative law judge in Seattle is expected to last several weeks.
This post was updated with new information at 1:13 p.m.
