Schumer sets up confirmation blitz in Senate

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) is teeing up a blitz of confirmation floor votes on President Biden’s nominees this week.

The focus on nominations comes as Senate Democrats are waiting for the House to send them Biden’s proposed $1.9 trillion coronavirus bill. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) wants a House vote on the bill by Friday, allowing the Senate to take it up as soon as next week.

In the meantime, Schumer said that Democrats would be working to confirm four Biden picks.

“The Senate will continue the process of confirming President Biden’s nominees with a vote on Linda Thomas-Greenfield to serve as the next U.N. ambassador,” he said from the Senate floor Monday.

The Senate is expected to hold an initial vote on Thomas-Greenfield’s nomination Monday night.

After they wrap up Biden’s United Nations pick, Schumer said they would turn to Tom Vilsack’s nomination to be the secretary of Agriculture. Under a deal stuck earlier this month, the Senate is expected to hold a vote to confirm Vilsack, who held the same position during the Obama administration, on Tuesday.

Schumer is also teeing up votes on former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D) to lead the Department of Energy and Miguel Cardona, Connecticut’s commissioner of education, to be Education secretary.

“Both nominees have been advanced by the respective committees with bipartisan votes, a pattern this week and at a time when our nation is gripped by a once in a century crisis. The president deserves to have his nominees approved quickly by this chamber so they can immediately get to work healing our great country,” Schumer said.

Biden has gotten seven Senate-approved nominees confirmed so far, after getting only one through on his first day in office: Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines.

Getting four confirmed in one week would be the most Biden has gotten through the Senate in a similar time frame since taking office.