Michael Hiltzik: Julie Su would be a perfect Labor secretary. That's why Big Business hates her
Most politically aware Americans are probably familiar with the function of confirmation hearings in a Senate with a razor-thin Democratic majority: It's where qualified nominations go to die.
That may be the course followed by President Biden's nomination of Julie Su as secretary of Labor, a job she has been filling on an interim and acting basis since the departure of former secretary Marty Walsh in February.
The nomination is scheduled for a vote Wednesday by the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, where its fate is unsure. The committee held a hearing on her nomination on April 20.
By any measure, Su, 54, the Stanford- and Harvard-educated daughter of Chinese immigrants, is spectacularly qualified for the permanent position. She has been a stalwart and exceptionally effective advocate for worker rights throughout her professional career.
In 1994, freshly out of law school, Su led the first after their rescue from an El Monte sweatshop and subsequent detention by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.
