List of Chairs of the National Labor Relations Board
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has five Members, each of whom serves for a five-year term. Terms are staggered so that one Member's term expires each year (although delays in nominations and confirmation, as well as the use of recess appointments, can upset this schedule). Members are nominated by the President of the United States and confirmed by the United States Senate. Traditionally, a majority of the board belongs to the President's political party. The President designates the Chair from one of the existing Members. The Chair serves at the pleasure of the President, and may be demoted without cause or warning at any time.
National Labor Relations Board
Between January 2008 and mid-July 2013 the agency never had all five members, and not once did it operate with three confirmed members. On July 14, 2013, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid threatened to exercise the "nuclear option" and allow a simple majority (rather than a supermajority) of the Senate to end a filibuster. This threat to end the filibuster's privileged position in the Senate was intended to end Republican filibustering of NLRB nominees. On July 16, 2013, President Obama and Senate Republicans reached an agreement to end the impasse over NLRB appointees. Obama withdrew the pending nominations of Block and Griffin, and submit two new nominees: Nancy Schiffer, associate general counsel at the AFL-CIO, and Kent Hirozawa, chief counsel to NLRB Chairman Mark Gaston Pearce. Republicans agreed not to oppose a fourth nominee, to be submitted in 2014.