I am confident that Mr. Becker can be an important part of that effort.

Justice delayed is justice denied, and all too often these delays mean there is no real penalty for violating workers' rights.

the question of whether the secret ballot election process should be rejected in favor of or supplemented with a card check certification process rests with Congress.

Whether employees would be subject to heightened levels of intimidation, threats or coercion if Congress authorized the Board to certify a representative based on authorization cards is an empirical question.

I suggest the absence of a quorum. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll. The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kaufman). The clerk will call the roll. The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.

I'm very proud of you, Mr. Becker, and I'm proud you're going to be on the National Labor Relations Board.

Serious concerns have been raised by HELP Committee members and the employer community about Mr. Becker's writings.

The NLRB is a small agency, but its mission is a large one, to 'encourage the practice and procedure of collective bargaining and protect the exercise by workers of full freedom of association.'

I will be looking for specific assurances with respect to specific statutes and regarding specific limits on the Board's authority.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Jeff Barham, a detailee in the Senate HELP Committee majority office, be granted floor privileges for the duration of the consideration of Ms. Patricia Smith's nomination to be Solicitor for the…

Mr. President, I listened very carefully to the statement made by my friend and ranking member, Senator Enzi. Many of the points raised by the Senator have been gone over before by the committee. These were things we looked into. So I…

you will recuse yourself from all cases involving the SEIU.

Current law bars coercion by unions and employers in relation to employees' choice of whether to be represented.

It is our responsibility to determine if these nominees can be entrusted with this power, or if they would compromise fairness to grant favors to special interest groups.

We will report this out on Thursday. I don't know what the floor will be like, but I can assure you that we will move this as expeditiously as possible on the floor.

I certainly don't want to hold this nominee accountable for the actions of others, but going forward I trust this committee will be vigilant in holding nominees accountable for their testimony.

Mr. President, in 2009 the Medicare, Medicaid and CHIP programs accounted for over $800 billion of the $2.3 trillion spent on health care in the U.S. Together, these programs constitute around 35 percent of national health spending. With…