Senate Republicans are under fire from progressive advocacy groups, trade unions, and congressional Democrats for voting Thursday to confirm corporate attorney Eugene Scalia, President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the U.S. Department of Labor.
“For too long, our political system has prioritized the interests of the wealthy at the expense of regular, hardworking Americans,” declared Morris Pearl, chair of the Patriotic Millionaires. “Scalia will undoubtedly be yet another stooge for rich and powerful interests at the very agency designed to curb that influence.”
“Senate Republicans’ decision to confirm him is an absolute betrayal to the American worker,” Pearl added.
The new labor secretary, who is the son of late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, was confirmed by a 53-44 vote along party lines in the Republican-controlled chamber. Presidential primary candidates Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) were not present for the vote, but both Sanders and Warren called out their Republican colleagues for approving Scalia, who has spent his career as a private attorney representing big corporations.
Sanders, a longtime advocate for workers, decried Trump’s nomination and the Senate’s confirmation vote as “obscene.”
Warren concurred, tweeting, “This is a disgrace.”
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