West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin may have put the kibosh on Sarah Bloom Raskin, President Joe Biden's nominee for a top regul...
West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin may have put the kibosh on Sarah Bloom Raskin, President Joe Biden's nominee for a top regulatory position at the Federal Reserve. The senator said Monday he is "unable to support her nomination" to be the vice chair of supervision at the Fed.
Lacking Manchin's support, Democrats will likely not have the votes needed to confirm Raskin, who has called for the Fed to punish banks and financial institutions that have business agreements with fossil fuel energy companies as a way to fight climate change. Raskin's positions on energy were central to Manchin's statement opposing her nomination.
"Now more than ever, the United States must have policy leaders and economic experts who are focused on the most pressing issues facing the American people and our nation - specifically rising inflation and energy cost," Manchin said in a statement Monday.
"I have carefully reviewed Sarah Bloom Raskin’s qualifications and previous public statements. Her previous public statements have failed to satisfactorily address my concerns about the critical importance of financing an all-of-the-above energy policy to meet our nation’s critical energy needs," he added.
Raskin is the second major Biden nomination Manchin has torpedoed. A little more than a year ago, Manchin said he would not support the nomination of Neera Tanden to lead the White House Office of Management and Budget. At the time, the moderate Democrat cited "overtly partisan statements" Tanden had made on social media as cause to believe she "will have a toxic and detrimental impact on the important working relationship between members of Congress and the next director of the Office of Management and Budget."
Manchin's rejection of Biden's nominee then drew outrage from the left, and so has his rejection of Raskin now.
"After all the psychoanalyzing of Manchin over the past year, it's become quite evident that the explanation for his behavior is simple: He's deeply, deeply corrupt," Salon politics writer Amanda Marcotte accused.
Occupy Democrats, an activist left-wing group that's popular on social media, posted, "Senator Joe Manchin stabs Joe Biden in the back again" and wrote in all-caps: "RT IF YOU THINK MANCHIN SHOULD BE BOOTED FROM THE PARTY!"
The White House has given no indication that Raskin's nomination will be pulled and seems to be ignoring Manchin's statement for now.
"[Sarah Bloom Raskin] is one of the most qualified people to have ever been nominated for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors – she previously served on the Board and she served as second-in-command at Treasury, both positions where she earned bipartisan Senate confirmation," deputy press secretary Chris Meagher tweeted after Manchin released his statement.
"We are working to line up the bipartisan support that she deserves, so that she can be confirmed by the Senate for this important position," he added.
A spokesperson for Senate Banking Committee Chairman Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said Monday that the committee will move forward with Bloom's nomination.
"Senator Brown is working to move forward Ms. Bloom Raskin’s nomination with bipartisan support, as Ms. Bloom Raskin has earned twice before," Browns office said.
While bipartisan support for Raskin could still save her nomination, technically, she's faced intense opposition from GOP senators. Republicans have criticized Raskin's controversial positions on climate change and scrutinized her time serving on the board of Reserve Trust, a fintech trust company. Reserve Trust became the only non-bank state-chartered trust to receive access to the Federal Reserve's payment system while Raskin, a former Fed official, was serving on the company's board between May 2017 and August 2019.
Republicans have questioned whether Raskin, who served as a Fed governor from 2010 to 2014, persuaded the Fed to give Reserve Trust a master account and then received 200,000 shares of company stock as compensation. The sale of those stocks is the subject of an ethics complaint filed by the watchdog group American Accountability Foundation against Raskin's husband, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.).
AAF took credit for sinking Biden's nominee after Manchin published his statement.
"Through our investigation, we exposed her radical views on fossil fuels, partisan politics, and shady ethics," the group said.
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