Supreme Court to Hear Oral Arguments in New Process Steel on March 23

On January 4, 2010, the Supreme Court set New Process Steel L.P. v. NLRB for oral argument on March 23. In November, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in New Process Steel to address the legality of NLRB decisions issued by the current two-member National Labor Relations Board. As a result of political impasses in the final year of the Bush administration and the first year of the Obama Administration, three vacancies on the Board have gone unfilled for nearly two years, leaving only two Board members, Democrat Wilma Liebman and Republican Peter Schaumber, to issue decisions. Before losing its quorum, the Board delegated its decision-making authority to the remaining two Board members. Five federal courts of appeal, including most recently the Tenth Circuit in December, have upheld the decisions of the two-member Board, while the D.C. Circuit ruled in New Process Steel that the decisions were invalid. A decision is expected by the end of June.