| Our ongoing look of the status of Obama's "stalled" nominees. It looks like the Tom Daschle logjam may finally be breaking: The Senate Finance Committee is “almost ready” to finish the vetting and confirmation process for former Sen. Tom Daschle to be secretary of Health and Human Services, the panel’s ranking Republican said Thursday.
A spokeswoman for Daschle confirmed that the committee had all the materials it had requested and said that part of the vetting process was finished. “They asked questions; we answered them; they have all our materials,” said the spokeswoman.
That puts the ball in the court of Senate Finance. Ranking Republican Charles E. Grassley of Iowa said that the committee was almost ready to move ahead.
“We’ve got just about all the information and we’re going through it,” Grassley said. “Probably within a few days we’ll be ready to move forward with announcing a hearing” on the nomination. -CQ
The GOP is still stretching out the committee vote on Labor Secretary-designee Hilda Solis: A spokesman for Sen. Mike Enzi (WY), chief GOPer on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions panel, told me that Republicans are still awaiting answers to more written queries from Solis.
"Republicans are still doing our due diligence on this nomination," the Enzi spokesman said, noting that the latest round of written questions was sent to Solis on Tuesday. He declined to discuss the nature of the GOP's queries, but said that more than just the EFCA is at issue. -TPMDC
With the announcement of a hearing date of Feb 5 for Deputy Attorney General nominee David Odgen, there are still 18 nominees who are in limbo for no apparent reason: Tom Daschle, Karen Mills, Nancy Killefer, John Holdren, Jeanne Lambrew, Dawn Johnsen, Tom Perrelli, Elena Kagan, Gary Gensler, Ron Kirk, William Corr, Rand Beers, David Kris, Tony West, Lanny Breuer, Christine Varney, Jane Holl Lute. (Names and commitee available after the break). |
Agriculture: Gary Gensler
Budget: Nancy Killefe
Commerce: John Holdren, Jane Lubchenco
Finance: Tom Daschle, Ron Kirk, William Corr
HELP: Jeanne Lambrew
Homeland Security: Rand Beers, Jane Holl Lute
Judiciary: Dawn Johnsen, Tom Perrelli, Elena Kagan, Tony West, Lanny Breuer, Christine Varney
Small Business: Karen Mills |
