Here are the Obama administration confirmation hearing dates coming up. Shown are date, Senate committee, nominee, and position.
Our list of key Presidential Appointments requiring Senate confirmation is here.
Hearings Scheduled:
Sep 23: Commerce, Science, and Transportation, Anne S. Ferro, of Maryland, to be Administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, and Cynthia L. Quarterman, of Georgia, to be Administrator of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, both of the Department of Transportation. Sep 23: Judiciary, Jacqueline H. Nguyen and Dolly M. Gee, both to be a United States District Judge for the Central District of California, and Richard Seeborg and Edward Milton Chen, both to be a United States District Judge for the Northern District of California.
Committee Votes Scheduled:
Sep 24: Judiciary, Paul Joseph Fishman, to be United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey, Jenny A. Durkan, to be United States Attorney for the Western District of Washington, Florence T. Nakakuni, to be United States Attorney for the District of Hawaii, and Deborah K. R. Gilg, to be United States Attorney for the District of Nebraska, all of the Department of Justice.
News is breaking of multiple cases of swine flu throughout the United States. Reports now say that Americans in New York, Kansas and Texas have been infected. Officials are bracing for a pandemic.
The Center for Disease Control (CDC), which is responsible for preventing the spread of swine flu, is managed by Health and Human Services (HHS) - a 65,000-person federal department lead by the HHS Secretary. At this moment, the office of HHS Secretary is empty. The reason? Republicans are delaying a vote to fill the office.
Despite being nominated nearly two months ago, the confirmation of Gov. Kathleen Sebelius for HHS Secretary has been blocked by Republican Senators seeking to curry favor with extremist outside groups. This is simply unacceptable.
This virus is spreading as we speak, but right now, a Bush-appointed accountant is running the department. We need an HHS Secretary NOW. Sign the petition telling the Senate to vote immediately to confirm Gov. Kathleen Sebelius. If we don't act, the swine flu might just turn into another Hurricane Katrina.
Please consider signing the petition, and calling your Senators.
Since the petition was posted, there has been a spread of reported cases. You can view the updated map here. Just in the US, we're looking at the addition of North and South Carolina, Indiana, New Jersey and Michigan. More states will announce today. There is also a global rise in multiple countries: greater spread in Europe, and cases now in South America, Australia and New Zealand.
Yesterday, it made sense to discuss the difference between an epidemic and a pandemic. That ship sailed. "Pandemic" indicates that the disease has spread to multiple regions and cannot be contained.
We lack a head of HHS and one for the FDA because the Senate has not confirmed the nominees. President Obama has not yet made nominations to head NIH nor the CDC. Pandemic flu, even as predominantly mild as it is, makes the nomination and confirmation of people in these positions suddenly critical.
The first Obama Administration Cabinet meeting is starting about now. There is only one position still to be filled, that of the Secretary of Health and Human Services. As for the rest of the cabinet, the make-up is historic.
Of the filled positions:
1 Republican, 1 Independent. ("People" keep saying Robert Gates is a Republican, but he's a registered Independent.)
Six women (7 if Sebelius is confirmed).
Four African-Americans (with Eric Holder being the first African-American AG).
Three Asian-Americans.
Two Hispanic-Americans.
Youngest: Peter Orszag (40), eldest Eric Shinseki (66).
Three members each from California, New York, Illinois and the District of Columbia.
In addition to members of the Cabinet, Rahm Emanuel and VP Joe Biden are attending the meeting. Radio news says that the Cabinet will be asked to cut $100 million from their budgets in the next 90 days, with more cuts coming.
NOTE: After I posted this, the White House sent over some examples of proposed cost cutting. They are listed after the jump.
The last we heard about Kathleen Sebelius' confirmation process, Senator Bunning had delayed her confirmation vote until after the spring recess. She had some tax problems, but the overwhelming majority of those of you voting in the poll felt that it wouldn't be a problem, and she would be confirmed.
Now, however, there is another issue. Governor Sebelius filed papers with the Senate Finance Committee indicating that she had received campaign contributions from George Tiller in the amount of $12,450 between 1994 and 2001. It turns out that there is another $23,000 in donations that Tiller provided to a Sebelius-established PAC over the same time period. Here's the thing: George Tiller, MD, is one of the few late-term abortion providers, and Sebelius formed that PAC while she was Kansas Insurance Commissioner.
HHS is saying it was an oversight, and it will be corrected. Abortion is an issue that has been more under the radar than usual this year for a variety of reasons. Does withdrawing her nomination help to keep the issue quiet? Will continuing her nomination process cause a quiet issue to erupt? Or perhaps, does it not matter?
Another day, another tax problem. This time, it's Kathleen Sebelius, who underpaid her taxes by a little under eight grand.
First, she said could not find letters documenting three charitable contributions, which are required to deduct contributions greater than $250. Second, she said that she and husband had sold their house in 2006 for an amount that was less than what they owed on the mortgage. They continued to pay off the loan, and continued to deduct the interest payments. She learned from the CPA that those interest payments were not deductible.
Finally, she said they had insufficient documentation for some deductions for business expenses. She amended the returns to reflect that. But she said that because they were subject to the Alternative Minimum Tax, the couple's tax liability did not change.
She had a courtesy hearing in front of HELP yesterday, where she answered questions to a friendly audience. Senator Kennedy, who chaired the hearing, read into the record a poignant story about his own on-going battle with brain cancer.
Echoing the president, Sebelius said that she doesn't support a one-size-fits-all, government-run health-care system. She indicated, however, that she would support "a public option, side by side with private insurers in a health insurance exchange."
Not something I wanted to hear, but the best I expected in the Daschle-less vacuum.
She will be in front of Finance tomorrow, where the actual vote will be held. This is Max Baucus' arena, and Sebelius may be too left for his personal taste, but I doubt he will be a stumbling block. However, her tax issue may arise at that hearing.
President Obama Announces His Intent to Nominate Craig Fugate as FEMA Administrator Fugate Will Appear With DHS Secretary Napolitano Tomorrow in New Orleans
WASHINGTON – Today, President Obama announced his intent to nominate the Director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management, Craig Fugate to be his FEMA Administrator.
On the nomination of Craig Fugate, President Obama said, “From his experience as a first responder to his strong leadership as Florida’s Emergency Manager, Craig has what it takes to help us improve our preparedness, response and recovery efforts and I can think of no one better to lead FEMA. I’m confident that Craig is the right person for the job and will ensure that the failures of the past are never repeated.
Fugate will join Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano for an event in New Orleans tomorrow. More details to follow.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano said, “FEMA must have experienced leadership to succeed in its challenging mission. Craig Fugate is no stranger to emergency management or to FEMA. He is one of the most respected emergency managers in the nation, and the work he’s accomplished in Florida serves as a model for other states to follow. He will be a tremendous asset to FEMA and its employees, and I look forward to working with him.”
(Note: If you're keeping score - 5,500 new jobs announced in this press release.)
President Obama nominates Governor Kathleen Sebelius Secretary of HHS Announces Release of $155 Million of ARRA Funds for Health Clinics Across America Leading Health Care Expert Nancy-Ann DeParle to serve as Director of White House Office for Health Reform
Today, President Barack Obama officially nominated Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius as Secretary of Health and Human Services. In this role, Sebelius will oversee a department with wide-ranging responsibilities essential to the American people, including the implementation of the President's vision for health care. As Secretary of Health and Human Services, Sebelius will work with Democrats and Republicans alike to cut costs, expand access, and improve the quality of health care for all Americans.
Nancy-Ann DeParle, one of the nation’s leading experts on health care and regulatory issues, will serve as Counselor to the President and Director of the White House Office for Health Reform. As commissioner of the Department of Human Services in Tennessee, she saw firsthand the health care system’s impact on workers and families. In the Clinton Administration, DeParle handled budget matters for federal health care programs, and took on the tremendous task of managing Medicare and Medicaid.
“If we are going to help families, save businesses, and improve the long-term economic health of our nation, we must realize that fixing what’s wrong with our health care system is no longer just a moral imperative, but a fiscal imperative. Health care reform that reduces costs while expanding coverage is no longer just a dream we hope to achieve – it’s a necessity we have to achieve, said President Obama. “And today, I am proud to announce key members of my team who will be critical to that effort: Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius for my Secretary of Health and Human Services, and Nancy Ann DeParle as Director of the White House Office for Health Reform.”
President Obama today also announced the release of $155 million authorized by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that will support 126 new health centers. These health centers will help people in need – many with no health insurance – obtain access to comprehensive primary and preventive health care services.
“We have acted quickly to put Recovery Act dollars to good use in communities across America,” said President Obama. “The construction and expansion of health centers will create thousands of new jobs, help provide health care to an estimated 750,000 Americans across the country who wouldn’t have access to care without these centers, and take another step toward an affordable, accessible health care system.”
The grants, which are administered by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), are expected to create 5,500 jobs at the new health centers.
The Times is reporting that Kathleen Sebelius is President Obama's current pick for HHS. I'm not even sure where to start, except to say that she's a better choice than Phil Bredesen.
I know, I know, everyone is saying she's a great pick because she was Kansas Insurance Commissioner, is personally anti-abortion, but stood up against denying all access to abortion in Kansas, undertook legislation to allow Kansans to buy Canadian and European prescriptions, believes that Universal Health Care is good. I know.
Fundamentally, I like Kathleen Sebelius. I agree with most of her politics. She's smart. She's done a GREAT job as Governor. Also, she's a big time Obama supporter, and got there early.
But here's the thing: Kathleen Sebelius is a moderate Democrat who believes in bipartisanship. Pair her up with Max Baucus and you end up with health care reform that is founded on saving money, helping business, and ignoring what really needs to get done. Sebelius is a decent choice for minimal reform, but it ends there.
(Expletive Deleted)
The only way to ***FIX*** health care is to first, remove all profit motive from all aspects of health care, and second, to develop a "HEALTH" care system in lieu of the "SICK" care system we have now. Neither of these get done under Sebelius. Nor Baucus. And the Universal Health Care legislation percolating in the House remains in the House.
Any bipartisan plan leaves the profit motive in place. The idea would be that government would compete with private insurers in the marketplace. The cognitive dissonance here is that private insurers don't insure "people", their clients are the companies who buy insurance for their employees. In a lot of cases, there is shared risk where the company shares profits with the insurer if the amount of claims is less than the amount of premiums. And insurance pays for procedures, not for outcomes. So, to compete, what private insurers will do, with the complete buy-in of the purchasing companies, is decrease services to meet cost targets.
It's looking more and more like 2009 might be the year that DC gets a voting rep in the House. The resolution giving DC one seat, and Utah one seat passed the Senate with 57 votes in 2007, but this year, it looks good for 60. There is no question it passes the House. From the Times:
The legislation would permanently expand the 435-member House by two seats. One seat would go to Washington and the other to Utah, which narrowly missed getting an additional seat after the last census. Utah, which traditionally leans Republican, now has one Democrat and two Republicans in the House.
There is no bill yet, but it will come. The IIE objection is that once DC gets a House seat, by all rights they should get two Senate seats, and given the stats on DC, those two Senators are forevermore Democrats. If you hear them saying that there aren't enough people in DC to qualify as a state, remember to mention that Wyoming has fewer people than DC, and the population of Vermont is not appreciably bigger.
Adding seats to the House is an interesting proposition, one that the majority of you were not in favour of the last time we polled it.
The AP reports that Kathleen Sebelius may be in the mix to be the next Secretary of Health and Human Services. The Kansas Governor does have executive experience in this arena - she previously served as that state's insurance commissioner - and is a close ally and friend of President Obama.
Sebelius has been praised by advocacy groups for taking a consumer watchdog role in her position as Kansas insurance commissioner for eight years prior to winning election as Governor.
The name of Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen remains in the mix, though some advocacy groups are lining up against his potential nomination due to his having a reputation that is more along the lines of cost-cutting then that of opening up access.
Here's the poll on the common choices for Secretary of Health and Human Services. These are the "buzz" names, and you'll see them popping up, except for one. And that name is my choice: Ted Kennedy.
I would put Jeanne Lambrew in the White House position, and give Ted Kennedy the cabinet one. Ted Kennedy DOES know health care: not just from a policy perspective, but also from the perspective of a patient with an incredibly serious illness. He knows the Senate. I know that the first objection is that he is gravely ill. I understand that, and contend that the work would be no more threatening to his health than his position as Senator. Further, Ted is not going to quit anything until there is no other option. He would be able to surround himself with the right people to pass the plan he already envisages, and by having Dr. Lambrew in the White House, it would be a workable team.
In addition, the nomination of Uncle Teddy would give the Obama White House time to consider the best person as their second Secretary of HHS. His appointment allows for all sorts of fast tracks. Above all, if he gets on the television and says "You deserve the same level of health care I have" it will sell. It will be the best way to get the point across. I imagine that confirmation would be an hour-long formality.
As reported in the Quick Hits earlier today, Nancy Killifer has withdrawn her name from nomination. From HuffPost:
Nancy Killefer, who failed for a year and a half to pay employment taxes on household help, has withdrawn her candidacy to be the first chief performance officer for the federal government, the White House said Tuesday.
And it's not like this wasn't a known thing....
When her selection was announced by Obama on Jan. 7, The Associated Press disclosed that in 2005 the District of Columbia government had filed a $946.69 tax lien on her home for failure to pay unemployment compensation tax on household help.
Here's the part I like best:
The AP reported that on March 7, 2005, the D.C. Department of Employment Services slapped a tax lien on her home in the tony Wesley Heights neighborhood. The local government alleged that just three years after she left the high-powered Treasury post she began to fail to pay unemployment compensation tax for a household employee. And she failed to make the required quarterly payments for a year and half, whereupon a lien for $946.69 was placed on her home.
That sum included $298 in unpaid taxes, $48.69 in interest and $600 in penalties. Killefer didn't get the lien extinguished for almost five months, not until July 29., 2005.
During that period, Killefer and her husband, an economics professor, had two nannies to help care for their teenage son and daughter, and she had a personal assistant to run her life when she was on the road, she told Harvard business students back then.
Hilda Solis' nomination is on hold, and the questions the GOP wants answers to come back to card check. The formal name is the Employee Free Choice Act, or EFCA. "Card check" is incredibly nuanced, and how you feel about it is generally related to how people explain it. And whether card check passes has a lot to do with how unionization processes will change or stay the same, and thus, the importance of Solis' answer.
She has not yet explained her position, saying that she and the President have not yet discussed it. Which makes sense if, as a Cabinet official, you want to tow the Administration line. However, the bill has come up before, and while it died, she voted for it as a Congresswoman.
So what is card check? Here's how it gets polled from each side. From the IIE*:
Pollster John McLaughlin, working for the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace,the question this way: "There is a bill in Congress called the Employee Free Choice Act which would effectively replace a federally supervised secret ballot election with a process that requires a majority of workers to simply sign a card to authorize organizing a union and the workers' signatures would be made public to their employer, the union organizers and their co-workers. Do you support or oppose Congress passing this legislation?"
From Labour:
The AFL-CIO's polling firm, Hart Research Associaties, asks respondents whether they'd support legislation that "[a]llows employees to have a union once a majority of employees in a workplace sign authorization cards indicating they want to form a union."
Eric Holder is being asked a few additional questions right now in front of the Judiciary Committee. The Senate is having a live webcast, and you can listen here.
The vote is also expected to be taken this morning.
Update: The hearing has been postponed according to First Read.
The Senate Judiciary Committee has postponed its 10:00 am ET session where it was expected to vote on Eric Holder's vote to be attorney general. According to committee press staff, the delay is to accommodate members who wanted to attend this morning's prayer service for President Obama.
The vote could happen later today. Holder is expected to be voted out favorably from the committee. The final vote before the full Senate will then have to be scheduled.
Those confirmed were Steven Chu to be energy secretary, Arne Duncan at education, Janet Napolitano for homeland security, Eric Shinseki to head veterans affairs, Ken Salazar for interior and Tom Vilsack to lead the department of agriculture.
The Senate also approved Peter Orszag, recently the director of the Congressional Budget Office, to head the White House's Office of Management and Budget. - AP
From the White House Press Office: 
