Biden Cabinet picks may face rough Republican reception in Senate
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[November 25, 2020]
By Patricia Zengerle
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican members
of the U.S. Senate fired warning shots to President-elect Joe Biden that
they may be prepared to stand in the way of his Cabinet appointments,
despite the long-held tradition of a new president having the right to
choose who will run government agencies.
The threats, from senators including Marco Rubio and Tom Cotton,
highlighted the importance of a pair of runoff elections in Georgia in
early January that will determine whether Republicans keep majority
control of the Senate, or cede it to Democrats after six years in the
minority.
On Monday, Biden's team announced some of his Cabinet picks, including
former State Department officials Antony Blinken as secretary of state
and Linda Thomas-Greenfield as ambassador to the United Nations and
former CIA official Avril Haines as director of national intelligence.
Biden also is also expected to tap former Federal Reserve Chair Janet
Yellen as Treasury secretary.
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"To the United States Senate. I hope these outstanding nominees received
a prompt hearing, and that we can work across the aisle in good faith to
move forward for the country," Biden told reporters on Tuesday.
Some Senate Republicans - most of whom have yet to acknowledge Biden's
defeat of President Donald Trump or refer to Biden as president-elect -
quickly condemned his picks.
Rubio, a senior member of the Foreign Relations Committee, which has
jurisdiction over State Department nominees, wrote on Twitter that
Biden's Cabinet picks "will be polite & orderly caretakers of America's
decline."
Cotton quoted 2014 criticism by former Defense Secretary Robert Gates
that Biden has been wrong on "nearly every" major foreign policy issue.
"Now he's surrounding himself with panda huggers who will only reinforce
his instincts to go soft on China," Cotton wrote on Twitter.
The Senate has traditionally backed most presidential nominees. But that
has changed in the current era of bitter partisanship.
Influential Senate Republican John Cornyn told reporters he assumed
Cabinet picks would be negotiated if Biden becomes president.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has not hesitated to wield the
power of his office since Republicans won Senate control in 2014. He
blocked dozens of nominations from Democratic then-President Barack
Obama and pushed through even some Trump nominees who faced objections
from members of his own party.
"If I'm still the majority leader of the Senate, think of me as the
'Grim Reaper,'" McConnell said last year.
McConnell opposed Yellen as Fed chair in 2013, but her years of
testimony in front of congressional leaders in that role make her a
known commodity on Capitol Hill.
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Georgia voters go to the polls on Jan. 5 for two runoff elections
pitting strong Senate Trump supporters David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler
against Democratic challengers.
If Democrats defy expectations and win both Georgia races, the Senate
will be divided 50-50, but they will have an effective majority and the
ability to confirm Biden nominees without Republicans. Vice President
Kamala Harris will be able to break any ties.
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![](../images/112520pics/news_h15.jpg)
U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) arrives for the
news conference following the weekly Senate Republican caucus policy
luncheon on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S. November 17, 2020.
REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo
![](../images/ads/current/fitzpatrick_lda_SPONSOR_2017.png)
Lara Brown, director of the graduate school of political management
at George Washington University, said Republicans would be more
obstructionist in the Senate if they win both of the Georgia
elections.
"They will feel that the wind is at their backs. They will feel that
they won even if Trump isn't on top of the ticket. They will feel
that there is an advantage for them to continue the campaign," she
said.
Democrats' complaints of obstructionism have not swayed U.S. voters.
Republicans gained seats in the Democratic-majority House of
Representatives on Nov. 3 and will have at least 50 seats in the new
Senate.
McConnell himself coasted to re-election, winning his Kentucky
Senate race with a comfortable 20-percentage-point margin.
McConnell aides did not respond to requests for comment on Biden's
nominations. The majority leader has not answered questions about
the issue at recent news conferences.
When Obama nominated Blinken as deputy secretary of state in 2014,
he was confirmed with only two Republican votes in what was then a
Democratic-majority Senate.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2020/Nov/23/images/ads/current/eaton_lda_HFH_2019.png)
Support for Yellen was more bipartisan. She received 11 Republican
votes.
Senate Democrats praised Biden's Cabinet choices, and said
Republicans should be prepared to give the new president freedom to
set up his administration, especially as the country faces the
coronavirus pandemic and other crises.
"I assume that the president-elect has every right to have his own
nominees be confirmed and go through a confirmation process,"
Senator Bob Menendez, the top Democrat on the foreign relations
committee, told Reuters. "That can be robust, but to suggest you are
not going to confirm is to suggest that you don't want the nation's
work to be done."
Biden's campaign noted that Republicans said they would support
experienced and qualified nominees.
"We don't need a fabricated crisis in the Senate and I don't think
the American people are going to tolerate that if there's a refusal
to move forward with qualified nominees," Biden adviser Jen Psaki
told CNN.
(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle, additional reporting by Richard
Cowan; editing by Mary Milliken and Jonathan Oatis)
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