Senate Banking Chair Sherrod Brown said Thursday he expects a Senate vote next week to confirm President Biden’s Federal Reserve nominees, though the timing may be affected by GOP opposition to Lisa Cook, who would be the first Black woman on the Board of Governors.
“We will have those votes coming up, I assume early next week,” Brown said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Balance of Power with David Westin.”
Brown said he’s urging Republicans to agree to vote on all of the nominees in one day. That includes Cook, who Republicans unanimously opposed in committee and as a result faces a procedural hurdle before a confirmation vote. She can advance and be confirmed if Democrats stay unified in the 50-50 Senate, with Vice President Kamala Harris able to provide the tiebreaking vote.
“The question to my Republican colleagues, ‘Are you going to force long debates?’ ” Brown said. “We can do it in the space of one day, once the will is there from both parties, and that’s what I’m insisting on.”
The Senate also has to vote on confirming Biden’s nominations of Jerome Powell to a second term as Fed chair, Lael Brainard as vice chair and Philip Jefferson as a governor. Powell and Jefferson have broad bipartisan support, while Brainard won four GOP votes in committee.
Brown dismissed GOP opposition to Cook, saying there’s “always partisan resistance and that’s too bad,” and reciting her lengthy academic resume.
Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, the Banking Committee’s top Republican, has previously assailed Cook as having “extreme left-wing political advocacy” and saying she “will further politicize” the Fed.
Brown said he’s speaking with the administration about filling the vice chair of supervision role left vacant when Sarah Bloom Raskin withdrew amid opposition from the GOP and West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin, a fossil-fuel supporter who cited her views on climate.
“The reason this nominee went down was all about the oil industry,” Brown said. “She would not have been confirmed because all 50 Republicans in the end do the bidding of the oil industry.”
— With assistance from David Westin.
