Robert Lighthizer, President Donald Trump’s nominee to be the next U.S. trade representative, has a reputation as a tough negotiator with a skeptical view of open-ended free trade deals.

In short, exactly the kind of person whose views align with a Democratic Party base that traditionally has been hostile to those very same trade pacts.

“If Democrats who claim to be the champions of the working class hold up Mr. Lighthizer’s confirmation one moment longer, they deserve to go into the off-shorers hall of fame.”

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Why, then, are Senate Democrats holding up Lighthizer’s nomination? The 12 members of the Senate Finance Committee reportedly are using the fact that Lighthizer needs a congressional waiver, because he has represented foreign governments in the past, as leverage to win concessions on an unrelated issue involving pension and health care benefits for coal miners.

It might be a hard position to defend.

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“If Democrats who claim to be the champions of the working class hold up Mr. Lighthizer’s confirmation one moment longer, they deserve to go into the off-shorers hall of fame,” economic policy analyst Alan Tonelson noted.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) has scheduled a confirmation hearing for Tuesday — 10 weeks after Lighthizer’s nomination — but without the wavier, it is unclear when he could be confirmed.

“That Senate Democrats continue to block nominees by creating unprecedented delays and conditions for the nominations process should come as little surprise,” an aide to Hatch told LifeZette. “While Chairman Hatch has remained committed to holding the nominations process to the same standard afforded to President Obama’s nominees, Democrats have responded with partisan and, now, unrelated demands. Coupling the Miners Protection Act with a waiver, which is still being examined under the bipartisan vetting process, would mean dismal prospects for either advancing through the committee.”

Neither Lighthizer nor the White House responded to question from LifeZette, but Inside U.S. Trade reported Wednesday that administration officials argue that the waiver requirement is an unconstitutional infringement on the president’s appointments power. The administration referred to a legal opinion during the Clinton administration arguing against the constitutionality of a statute prohibiting people who have represented foreign governments from becoming trade representative.

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As it turns out, Congress approved the waiver and confirmed Charlene Barshefsky in 1996, so the issue never went to court.

Whether or not Trump decides to try to push Lighthizer’s nomination without the waiver, advocates of tougher trade policies argue that Democrats do themselves no favors with blue-collar voters by obstructing the nomination.

“The question is, do Democrats want to further damage their standing with a former core constituency?” said Kevin Kearns, president of the U.S. Business and Industry Council. “There are many other vehicles to attach the coal miners pension-and-benefits issue to … Why in the world would you hold up the confirmation of the president’s candidate for USTR given the fact that he is extremely knowledgable?”

Lighthizer, 69, served as chief counsel and staff director for the Senate Finance Committee before becoming deputy trade representative under Ronald Reagan. He negotiated two dozen bilateral trade deals. A longtime advocate of American steel, he helped persuade Japan, South Korea, Mexico, and Britain to accept “voluntary” limits on cheap steel “dumped” into the U.S. market.

He wrote in a 2011 Washington Times op-ed arguing that tariffs help promote American industry, pointing out that it was a traditionally Republican principle before free trade dogma took hold in recent decades.

“He’s made a living as a lawyer defending American domestic producers who are being harmed by foreign predatory practices,” said Tonelson, who writes a blog called RealityChek. “For many years, he was nearly a lone voice in the woods [among Republicans] in this respect.”

Delaying Lighthizer’s confirmation prevents the administration from moving full-bore on its efforts to reorient trade policy. Tonelson said Lighthizer likely would be working to confront China’s “predatory practices.”

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Kearns said Lighthizer will be necessary to renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement. Trump railed against NAFTA during his campaign, and he is expected to give a required 90-day notice of his intention to redo the pact.

Until the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is staffed, Kearns said, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and National Trade Council head Peter Navarro effectively control U.S. trade policy. But neither has the technical expertise that Lighthizer possess, he added.

In addition to all of those thing, Kearns said, Trump has spoken of his desire to negotiate one-on-one trade deals with both Britain, after it exits the European Union, and Japan.

“Lighthizer would be involved in all of that,” he said.