Eric Garcetti’s nomination as India ambassador advances in US Senate

WASHINGTON: More than two years into President Joe Biden’s administration, the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC) advanced the confirmation process for Biden’s nominee for ambassador to India, former Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti on Wednesday for a second time. Garcetti’s nomination will now move to the Senate floor.

Biden renominated Garcetti for the job in January after his confirmation got stuck in the last Congress due to allegations that he had ignored sexual harassment allegations against a close aide. The US has not had an ambassador in Delhi since January 2021, the longest ever period of diplomatic vacuum at this level from Washington’s end in the history of the India-US bilateral relationship.

To be sure, the SFRC vote does not mean Garcetti has been conadvancing firmed — but it was a necessary condition for the confirmation and has opened the doors for the US to finally have an envoy. The administration has welcomed the move, while acknowledging, in an implicit admission of divisions and politics coming in way of legislative confirmations of executive nominees, that no other country would leave a position vacant in a place such as India for so long.

On Wednesday, the SFRC voted 13 to 8 in favour of Garcetti, with two Republican Senators, Todd Young and Bill Haggerty, joining ranks with their Democratic colleagues in the nomination. Both Senators are active on Indo-Pacific issues, critical of China, and see India as an important partner. Young said, “It’s in our national security interest to have an ambassador immediately in place in India in order to balance China, work with the US throughout the Indo-Pacific...He has an imperfect resume, but the skills to succeed in this capacity.”

But the committee’s ranking member, Republican Jim Risch, opposed the nomination, saying that “new evidence” had led to him reconsidering his earlier decision to support Garcetti. Questioning Garcetti’s “judgment”, Risch said, “we must ensure that any chief of mission will...protect our foreign service officers and embassy staff from all types of harassment.”

This is the second time SFRC has forwarded Garcetti’s nomination to the Senate floor. Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer has said he will take it up soon.

Eric Garcetti