Dotson Denies Seeking 2nd Term at NLRB

Donald L. Dotson, the departing chairman of the National Labor Relations Board, denied Tuesday that he at one time had wanted President Reagan to appoint him to a second five-year term.

Dotson said he has “consistently made it clear that I intended to serve only one term.”

“When I accepted this appointment for one term, I was staying in government longer than I had planned to when I joined the Administration in 1981,” he said in a letter to the Washington Post.

Dotston, 49, will join the Chicago law firm of Keck, Mahin & Cate when he leaves the NLRB. His term expires Dec. 16.

Administration and congressional sources, labor law attorneys and representatives of interest groups, insisting on anonymity, have said that Dotson had sought support for reappointment. But they added that his ability to win confirmation by the Senate was considered unlikely because of its return to Democratic control in the 1986 election.

“The fact is that the guy couldn’t have been confirmed,” one Administration source, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Tuesday.

However, in his letter, Dotson said: “My decision had nothing to do with the confirmation process. There is not a shred of evidence to the contrary.”