extended the right to have a worker representative present during disciplinary hearings to nonunion employees. George W. Bush won the 2000 U.S. presidential election, and Truesdale signaled that he would resign his seat on the board in order to permit Bush to appoint his own chairperson. But there was concern that if Truesdale stepped down right away, the board would lack a quorum until such time as the Senate confirmed Bush's new appointees. Subsequently, Truesdale delayed his resignation from the NLRB. As Bush's nominee for chair, Peter Hurtgen, was confirmed on May 15, 2001, but Truesdale remained on the board to help the agency maintain its quorum. As his tenure as chair came to a close, Truesdale publicly urged Hurtgen and future NLRB chairs to look hard at existing precedent to ensure board decisions met the needs of the modern workplace and to continue to keep the backlog of cases low. Truesdale resigned as chair of the NLRB on May 14, 2001, but remained on the board until resigning on October 1, 2001. Rene Alexander Acosta was nominated on October 9, 2001, as Truesdale's replacement on the board. Acosta was confirmed on November 22, 2002, for Truesdale's unexpired term that ended on August 27, 2003. Retirement and death Truesdale had kind words for his successor, Peter J. Hurtgen. "He's not an ideologue," Truesdale said in October 2002. "He came from a management background, and I guess he himself would tell you he was a conservative Republican and a management-oriented person. But he was always very fair." Although he was 78 years old when he left the NLRB in 1998, Truesdale continued to work as an arbitrator—and continued to make headlines. One such ruled came in the Banita Jacks case. In 2008, Jacks was found guilty of starving and then murdering her four children (aged 5 to 16). Four days after the bodies were found, District of Columbia Mayor Adrian Fenty fired six employees of Washington's Child and Family Services Agency, saying they "just didn't do their job." Three of the social workers filed grievances with the city. Truesdale was assigned to the case as an arbitrator. In September 2008, Truesdale issued an opinion in which he ruled that all three had been illegally terminated. Truesdale ordered the city to rehire the social workers at the same pay and benefit grades, expunge the incident from their personnel records, and give them