GOP Senators Oppose Raskin for Fed Job, Block Vote

Republicans in the Senate have blocked a vote on some of President Biden’s Federal Reserve nominees, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday (Feb. 15), as they refused to attend the vote.

The vote was for all five picks for the Fed, and the main disagreement came over Sarah Bloom Raskin, who would take on the role of vice chairwoman for bank supervision.

After that, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said Republicans had been deliberately taking steps to curb the Fed’s ability to combat economic challenges like inflation.

Republicans’ concerns about Raskin included her past role at the company Reserve Trust, where she allegedly may have used government connections to help the company. Raskin had also served at the Fed during the Obama administration.

“Until basic questions have been adequately addressed, I do not think the committee should proceed with a vote on Ms. Raskin,” the committee’s top Republican, Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), said Tuesday ahead of the scheduled vote.

While Democrats have a 50-50 control of the Senate, with the tie-breaking vote from Vice President Kamala Harris, Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) will likely miss four to six weeks of work because of a stroke — thus depriving the Democrats of an important vote for nominees without Republican support.

Brown has said he won’t consider requests to postpone for Raskin’s vote or separate her from the other nominees. He said he didn’t intend to let Republicans “cherry pick” and say they’ll only vote for some of the nominees.

Related: FinTech Reserve Trust Founder Says Fed Nominee Raskin Allegations ‘Completely False’

Raskin was recently defended by Reserve Trust’s co founder Dennis Gingold after she was accused of reaching out to government contacts about the Reserve Trust’s request for a master account being denied by the Kansas City Fed.

Gingold said that wasn’t the case, and said her conduct had been appropriate and ethical. That’s different from Toomey’s account, in which he said he’d had a phone call and was told that Raskin had personally called the Kansas City Fed.

Raskin herself has said she doesn’t remember the incident.