President Trump’s nomination of fast-food businessman Andy Puzder to be the new head of the Labor Department appeared endangered Tuesday when the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee delayed his confirmation hearing yet again.
The committee indicated the reason was that it had not received the required paperwork from Puzder yet.
“The committee will not officially notice a confirmation hearing with Mr. Puzder until the committee has received his paperwork from the Office of Government Ethics,” a representative from the committee said.
The precise nature of the problem was murky but sources with knowledge of the situation who requested anonymity said that Puzder had provided the requested information to the ethics office. The problem, they said, was the Senate Democrats had raised questions about how Puzder had divested his investments. One pro-Puzder source characterized the Democrats’ actions as a “delaying tactic.”
Puzder originally was set to have a hearing this month, but it was delayed, most recently to Feb. 7, only to have that date called off Tuesday. A new date has not been set.
Tuesday’s delay further fueled rumors around Capitol Hill that Puzder may be having second thoughts. His critics seized on the news as proof that the nomination was running aground.
“As of today, we have had the hearing delayed four times and he still has not turned in his ethics paperwork,” Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., said at a news conference that featured a picture of Puzder with the words, “What does he have to hide?”
Puzder, chief executive officer of CKE Restaurants, which owns the Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr., franchises, has been a controversial pick. A staunch advocate for Trump during the campaign, he has been an outspoken critic of federal regulations, arguing they strangle businesses.
The nomination pleased business groups but has met fierce resistance from Democrats and organized labor, who have argued that Puzder is anti-worker. They have mounted an aggressive public relations campaign against him arguing that workers for the franchiser regularly find themselves in abusive workplaces.
“Working Americans do not want to see an anti-union burger tycoon as labor secretary,” said Rep. Joe Crowley, D-N.Y.
Puzder’s fans have sought to counter that portrait. House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., hosted a press conference Tuesday featuring several workers from Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr.’s across the country.
Foxx characterized the union-led effort as a “smear campaign” that was using a few “outlying cases” of bad practices at restaurants to falsely claim that that was the norm. The workers gathered Tuesday echoed that argument.
“We have 75,000 people working for Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. If you have 30 complaints [out of that] I think you are doing great. Anyone who says otherwise needs to grow up,” said Patsy Eskilson, a Hardee’s worker in Gallup, Fla.
