The New York Times has as good an explanation for why Senate Democrats backed off their effort to confirm Carolyn Colvin as Commissioner of Social Security as I can find:
On Wednesday, Democrats plan to turn to the confirmation of a dozen federal district court judges. They backed off an attempt to confirm Carolyn W. Colvin as head of the Social Security Administration because it was going to be too time-consuming and Republicans were unlikely to yield because of their objections over continuing investigations at the agency.Don't ask me why they bothered to start cloture if they weren't willing to see it through to the end.
Here's the Post's take on it:
ReplyDelete"One nomination that Reid fumbled was that of Carolyn W. Colvin to head the Social Security Administration. Reid pulled back a procedural vote on her because it would have eaten up too much time. Under Senate rules, it would have required 30 hours of debate before clearing a key hurdle.
Now, Colvin’s nomination probably will not come up again until next year, when Republicans control the Senate."
And she will continue to serve as Acting Commissioner until a replacement is named -- i.e. at least until after the next presidential election in 2016.
ReplyDeleteThere is no real harm to either Colvin or Obama in letting her contine in "acting" status indefinitely.