Opinion ID: 778104
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: jurisdiction

Text: 13 This Court retains jurisdiction to review final orders of the Board pursuant to 29 U.S.C. §§ 160(e) and (f). 14 In the proceedings below, FiveCAP argued that it was not subject to the jurisdiction of the NLRB because it is a political subdivision exempt from the terms of the NLRA. We concur in the NLRB's finding that FiveCAP is in fact an employer subject to the jurisdiction of the NLRA and is not a political subdivision. A political subdivision must be either (1) created directly by the state, so as to constitute departments or administrative arms of the government, or (2) administered by individuals who are responsible to public officials or to the general electorate. NLRB v. Natural Gas Util. Dist. of Hawkins County, Tenn., 402 U.S. 600, 604-05, 91 S.Ct. 1746, 29 L.Ed.2d 206 (1971) (adopting in part the Board's construction of the statutory term political subdivision.). An entity can only satisfy the second prong of Hawkins County by ensuring that a majority of its board of directors are directly responsible to the general electorate. See Econ. Sec. Corp., 299 NLRB 562, 1990 WL 272722 (1990). Though one-third of FiveCAP's board of directors consist of politically elected individuals and their designees, and another third are selected in accordance with democratic selection procedures sufficient to assure that they represent the low-income community that FiveCAP serves, we agree with the Board that this does not mean that FiveCAP's board is administered by individuals who are responsible to the general electorate. See Enrichment Servs. Program, Inc., 325 NLRB 818, 819, 1998 WL 271620 (1998) (An `electorate' of all poor persons or groups thereof does not include all individuals in the area served who would be eligible to vote in general political elections. Accordingly, we find that the Employer's directors who are `elected by the poor' are not `responsible ... to the general electorate' within the meaning of the Hawkins County test.). Because this portion of FiveCAP's board of directors cannot be considered responsible to the general electorate, FiveCAP cannot be considered a political subdivision.