President Biden this week announced the renomination of Julie Su to be Secretary of Labor.
Biden first nominated Su in March 2023 and the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee approved her nomination in an 11-10 party-line vote, but her nomination stalled on the Senate floor as Democrats such as Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) announced opposition to her nomination.
Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) and Jon Tester (D-MT) never said publicly whether they supported or opposed Su’s first nomination.
No Republicans are expected to support Su’s nomination.
Su, who has served as U.S. deputy secretary of labor since 2021, stepped in as acting secretary of labor after the resignation of Marty Walsh in early March 2023. Before her tenure in the Department of Labor, she served as Labor Secretary of California under Governor Gavin Newsom and ran the state’s Division of Labor Standards Enforcement (DLSE) under Governor Jerry Brown.
A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released in September 2023 stated that a deputy labor secretary can serve as acting secretary indefinitely. The Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998 states that a deputy labor secretary can act as secretary “until a successor is appointed.”
Legislation has been introduced in the House that would limit the tenure of an acting secretary to 210 days or as long as a nomination is pending.
The Senate HELP Committee has not announced a vote on Su’s renomination.
