Sara Nelson for Labor Secretary

Biden had the right idea in selecting as his first labor secretary, Marty Walsh, someone with a union card. He just chose the wrong the wrong union leader.

I was not a great fan of Labor Secretary Marty Walsh, who announced yesterday that he will leave in mid-March to become executive director of the NHL Players Association. Walsh was disengaged from the regulatory agenda and often unavailable for the sort of face-to-face negotiation so necessary with members of Congress. He was unavailable because this onetime mayor of Boston refused to leave his lifelong home in Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood (Dahchestah if you’re a local). Early reports are that even the $3 million the NHL Players Association will pay Walsh won’t buy them his relocation to Toronto, where the group’s headquarters resides.

The leading candidate to replace Walsh is Julie Su, who, as I observe in my latest New Republic piece, is an excellent candidate but may face difficulties getting confirmed because as California labor secretary she helped push through Assembly Bill 5, a worker misclassification law with teeth that for that very reason has provoked deep ire from Republicans. Su squeaked through on Senate confirmation in July 2021 but the Democrats’ anti-labor caucus (Kyrsten Sinema, Mark Kelly, and Joe Manchin) may not come through a second time. It may be perverse to address this problem by suggesting that President Joe Biden nominate Sara Nelson, a lively provocateur who is president of the Association of Flight Attendants. But Nelson’s adversary, the airline industry, is among the least-liked business sectors—even Republicans hate the airlines—and that should help. Anyway, I’m going with Nelson; to paraphrase Doris Day, Que Sara Sara. You can read my piece here.