Senate Republicans block vote on key counterterrorism nominee: 'We’re going home for Christmas.'
As the calendar winds down, President Obama's nominations near a critical point—without confirmation this calendar year, many will have to be renominated in January, some for the third time. One of the most important nominations being delayed is Adam Szubin's as the Treasury Department's undersecretary for terrorism and financial crimes. That would be the post in charge of tracking down and stopping the funds going to terrorist organizations. Which you would think would be kind of important.
You would think wrong, at least as far as Republicans are concerned. On Wednesday, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) went to the Senate floor to try to force votes on some key nominations being held up by the Banking Committee, where's he's the top Democrat, including Szubin's. He pointed out that there "are substantive complaints about none of them. There is opposition based on their history, record, qualifications to none of them. It's all about Obama. […] And because they don't like the Iran nuclear agreement, we shouldn’t confirm somebody who will make us safer?"
The panel's chairman, Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, swiftly objected to each of Brown's attempts."That’s a policy decision," Shelby said Wednesday of the nomination of Szubin, whom Shelby called "eminently qualified" during his confirmation hearing in September. "You know, he's probably a nice guy in all this. But there is a lot of dissent in our caucus on that."
Asked whether Szubin could move through his committee soon, Shelby responded: "We're not going to vote now. We're going home for Christmas."
Yet another Republican really committed to fighting the war on terrorism.
Of course, it's not just this nomination. There are 19 potential judges, "a half-dozen ambassadors […] and two high-ranking State Department nominees are awaiting confirmation." That "has this GOP-led Senate on track for the lowest number of confirmations in 30 years." There was a bit of movement Wednesday on a key appeals judge nomination, Luis Felipe Restrepo's. He's waited nearly 400 days for confirmation to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit. They've finally scheduled his vote—for a month from now.