Republicans flex new power, block Obama nominee

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senate Republicans flexed their new political muscle on Tuesday and blocked President Barack Obama's nomination of a union lawyer to help referee labor disputes.

Obama's fellow Democrats in the Senate fell far short of the needed 60 votes, 52-33, to end debate and clear the way for a confirmation vote on Craig Becker, who the president wants to put on the National Labor Relations Board.

Republicans prevailed with the help of two Democratic senators from conservative states, Ben Nelson and Blanche Lincoln. Nelson, like a number of Republicans, voiced fear that the union attorney would take a "personal agenda" to the NLRB.

While Democrats still hold the Senate majority, 59-41, Republicans have a stranglehold on the chamber -- thanks to Scott Brown's win in a special Senate election in Massachusetts last month.

With Brown sworn in last week as the 41st Senate Republican, Democrats no longer hold the 60 votes needed to clear Republican procedural roadblocks.

The new balance of power puts much of Obama's agenda, including his bid to revamp U.S. healthcare, in dire trouble unless the president can win rare bipartisan support in a divided Congress.

To be sure, even before Democrats lost their 60-vote supermajority, they were often unable to stick together. But now, even if they do, they need the vote of at least one Republican to confirm nominees and approve legislation.

Obama, frustrated that Republicans have delayed votes on a number of his nominees, said on Tuesday he may make temporary "recess appointments" during Congress's break next week.

"We can't afford to allow politics to stand in the way of a well-functioning government," Obama declared.

Recess appointees could stay in office until the end of next year. Republican and Democratic presidents have made such appointments, drawing outrage from the opposing party.

Republican Senator Orrin Hatch urged Obama not to circumvent the Senate on Becker, saying, "The Senate spoke with a loud, clear and bipartisan voice."

The Becker battle is part of a bigger fight -- between organized labor and business, between Democrats and Republicans -- over stalled legislation to make it easier to unionize.

Becker, a 1981 graduate of Yale Law School, has served as associate general counsel for the AFL-CIO as well as for the Service Employees International Union.

Obama nominated Becker in July to the five-member NLRB, which decides cases involving workers' rights to form and join unions.

Democratic Senator Tom Harkin called Becker "one of the preeminent labor law thinkers in the United States."

But Republican Senator John McCain, in opposing Becker, said he was "the first person ... nominated for a term on the National Labor Relations Board who comes directly from a labor organization."

William Samuels, the AFL-CIO's legislative director, mocked McCain's opposition, noting, "Management attorneys have been nominated to the NLRB for decades."

Samuels called the blocking of Becker "another indication of the anti-union bias of the Republican Party."

(Editing by Vicki Allen)