We thought it was resolved for good back in December with the NLRB decision in the Hy-Brand Industrial Contractors case, but the Inspector General’s report on that vote and Bill Emanuel’s participation in it changed that outcome. Now comes a request from the Competitive Enterprise Institute that the same Office of the Inspector General investigate whether NLRB member and former chairman Mark Gaston Pearce illegally leaked information about the Board vacating the Hy-Brand decision. In a letter to the agency this week, the conservative Washington think tank cites a Wall Street Journal editorial in which it is stated that Pearce “let it slip” in a speech to the American Bar Association that Hy-Brand would be vacated. While that issue percolates, Alabama Congressman Bradley Byrne, sponsor of the Save Local Business Act (which would codify the historical joint employer definition requiring “direct control”), urged the Senate to pass the bill and remove the uncertainty from franchised businesses. And finally, at the state level, we had a win and a loss recently as Idaho Governor Butch Otter signed into law a bill (House 527) codifying that neither a franchise nor a franchisee’s employees shall be considered employees of the franchisor. Back on the East Coast a few weeks ago, new Virginia Governor Ralph Northam vetoed a similar bill that would have accomplished the same result in Virginia.