Panels back president’s agriculture, labor choices
WASHINGTON — The Senate on Thursday advanced President Donald Trump’s nominees to lead the labor and agriculture departments and moved the new administration closer to filling the final pair of empty seats in his Cabinet.
In back-to-back tallies just off the Senate floor, two committees sent the nominations of former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue and law school dean Alexander Acosta to a full Senate vote. Republicans hope to vote next week on confirming Perdue to head agriculture and Acosta at labor.
The Agriculture Committee advanced Perdue’s nomination by voice vote. The Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee backed Acosta along party lines, 12-11. Democrats have said they are troubled by Acosta’s failure to say whether he would uphold current Labor Department rules and by a political hiring scandal on Acosta’s watch as head of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department.
The potential confirmations, especially Acosta’s, would cap Trump’s sometimes-bumpy drive to confirm members of his Cabinet, some without the extensive vetting usually conducted on nominees.
Trump’s attempts to fill the top labor post have been especially fraught.
The first choice, fast food CEO Andrew Puzder, was beset by problems in Puzder’s background that ultimately alienated enough Republicans to push confirmation out of reach.
Puzder withdrew his name from consideration in mid-February. Two days later, Trump nominated Acosta.
At his confirmation hearing, the 48-year-old dean of Florida International University law school said he would stand up to any political pressure from the White House. But Democrats said they were concerned that he would just take orders from Trump, who he called his “boss.” They pointed to a Justice Department’s inspector general report that said Acosta had insufficiently supervised an employee who was using political tests in hiring.
Perdue, 70, gained bipartisan support during his confirmation hearing by stressing that he has worked with Democrats in the past.