The nomination of Eugene Scalia to serve as head of the Labor Department was approved Sept. 26 by the Senate in a 53-44 vote.
The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee endorsed Scalia’s nomination Sept. 24 in a 12-11 party-line vote. The committee held a three-hour hearing Sept. 19 at which the nominee was questioned on a wide range of labor-related topics.
Most recently, Scalia has been a partner at the Washington, D.C. office of the Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher law firm. During the administration of President George W. Bush, he served as Solicitor of Labor, the Department’s principal legal officer with responsibility of a broad range of regulatory and enforcement matters. He is also, of course, the son of the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
During the Senate HELP Committee’s hearing on his nomination, Scalia was questioned whether he would recuse himself in the ongoing revamp of the DOL’s fiduciary rulemaking. He replied that he would seek guidance from the designated ethics officials within the DOL. Scalia served as counsel for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce appellants in litigation that was ultimately successful in challenging the DOL’s attempt at rewriting the fiduciary rule.
Scalia succeeds Alexander Acosta, who resigned July 12 in the wake of controversy regarding a plea deal Acosta negotiated more than a decade ago with the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.
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