Good Riddance!

Republican Senate Majority Whip Don Nickles (R-OK), has announced that he will retire next year. Nickles has been a frequent guest in my nightmares over the past three years:

For business leaders, Nickles has been a stalwart. In 2001, he led a successful effort to kill ergonomics rules that the Clinton administration wrote to force companies to take detailed steps to prevent workplace injuries.

I have "fond" memories of him leering at us outside the Senate chamber as he led the assassination of the ergonomics standard, and then standing around gloating after the foul deed was done.

Greatest Quotes:

"It's probably the most expensive, intrusive regulation ever promulgated."

"It's probably the most expensive, intrusive regulation ever promulgated, certainly by the Department of Labor and maybe by the government entirely"

Golly, maybe in the whole world! Or in the history of the universe!

"The Senate did the right thing tonight by voting to overturn the most intrusive, expensive and job-killing regulation ever handed down by OSHA. It was the right thing to do for employers and employees alike"

He should go get a job in a poultry processing plant or a nursing home.

Sen. Don Nickles, R-Okla., holds a copy of the regulations issued by the Clinton administration dealing with workplace ergonomics during a Washington news conference.
Photo by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS