A day after the dramatic defeat for one of his cabinet nominees, President Trump named former U.S. attorney Alexander Acosta as his next pick for labor secretary Thursday.
Acosta, the dean of the law school at Florida International University, served as an assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division under President George W. Bush and is a former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida. He also previously served on the National Labor Relations Board.
In his announcement, Trump said Acosta, a former clerk to Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, Jr., has had a “tremendous career.”
If confirmed, the son of Cuban-American parents would be the first Hispanic member of Trump’s Cabinet.
The nominee earned his undergraduate degree from Harvard College and received a law degree from Harvard Law School. He previously worked at the law firm Kirkland & Ellis and taught at the George Mason School of Law.
Trump’s announcement came on a day when senators were supposed to be grilling his first choice for the job, fast-food chief executive Andrew Puzder. While the executive faced staunch opposition from Democrats and labor groups who were concerned about his opposition to wage and labor regulations, it was his support of immigration reform and the revelation that he once hired an undocumented immigrant in his home that ultimately did him in.
Puzder withdrew his nomination Wednesday amidst wavering support from Republicans and intense scrutiny of his personal life, including a rancorous divorce from more than 25 years ago that included domestic violence allegations, which his ex-wife later retracted. In the hours before Puzder announced his withdrawal, a dozen Republican senators “at a minimum” said they were withholding support for his nomination, according to a senior Republican who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid political retributions.
Unlike Puzder, who has a long background in business and a history of opposing government regulations, Acosta would come to the role with some public service experience. Some of his views may be at odds with Trump’s push to reduce regulations and rule making by agencies. In 2010, Acosta wrote an article for the FIU Law Review advocating that the National Labor Relations Board shift from a “pre-World War II quasi-judicial administrative agency model” to one in which it would issue rules. “Rulemaking is a better, more democratic, more stable, more transparent, and more modern path for quasi-legislative enactments,” he wrote. He said that the NLRB “should learn from other agencies and it should hire staff experienced with the specific challenges of rulemaking.”
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