Senate confirms Brainard to be Fed's vice chair
The Senate on Tuesday confirmed the nomination of Lael Brainard to a four-year term as vice chair of the Federal Reserve, elevating her to the Fed's No. 2 post in the midst of the central bank's toughest fight against inflation in four decades.
Her confirmation came in a 52-43 vote in the Senate, with seven Republicans and all Democrats who were present voting in favor. President Joe Biden had nominated Brainard in November.
The relatively close vote reflects the increasingly partisan atmosphere in Congress and nationally that is now engulfing the nomination process for the Fed, an independent institution that has sought to remain above politics. The last time that Brainard, a longtime Democratic official, came before the Senate in 2014, her nomination to the Fed's Board of Governors was approved 61-31.
In another sign of the divide, a procedural vote on whether to consider Biden's nomination of Lisa Cook, an economics professor, to a position on the Fed's board, was voted down Tuesday on partisan lines, delaying a final Senate vote on her nomination.
The delay in considering Cook, who, if confirmed, would become the first Black woman to serve on the Fed's board, prompted angry recriminations by senators from both parties, including statements suggesting racial bias by Senate Republicans.
“Republicans in my committee have a consistent record voting against Black women,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown, the Ohio Democrat who leads the Senate Banking Committee.
Brown cited Republicans' overwhelming opposition to the nominations of Sandra Thompson to direct the agency that regulates mortgage giants Fannie
Mae and Freddie Mac, and to Biden's Supreme Court nominee, Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Sen. Pat Toomey from Pennsylvania, the senior Republican on the committee, countered that it was “sad and shameful” to suggest “that there is some kind of racial bias against Black women” among Senate Republicans. Toomey noted that Republicans on the committee have voted in favor of five women of color, including Cecilia Rouse, one of Biden's top economic advisers.
Biden and the Senate have struggled to fill three vacancies on the Fed's seven-member board just as the central bank is grappling with the delicate challenge of raising interest rates enough to clamp down on inflation — but not so much as to plunge the economy into recession.
Brainard's rise to a leading policymaking role follows an extensive career as an economic official during previous Democratic administrations. She was an adviser to President Bill Clinton in the late 1990s before becoming the top Treasury official for international affairs during President Barack Obama's administration, from 2009 to 2013.
Brainard, 60, the lone Democrat on the board for now, has generally supported keeping interest rates low to support growth and hiring, which makes her a “dove” in Fed parlance. “Hawks,” by contrast, generally support higher rates to control inflation.