Garcetti to be India ambassador
Confirmation took 20 months following scandal
Former Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti won confirmation Wednesday from a divided Senate as the nation's next ambassador to India, more than a year and a half after he was first nominated by President Joe Biden and after weathering doubts about his truthfulness in a sexual harassment scandal involving a City Hall adviser.
The 52-42 vote gave the administration a longsought victory with several Republicans breaking party discipline for the vote that they said was critical to fill one of the country's highest-profile diplomatic posts.
“It's a national security imperative to immediately have an ambassador in place in India. We can't afford to wait any longer,” said Indiana Sen. Todd Young, one of the Republican crossover votes.
The day began with uncertain prospects for Garcetti, a two-term, progressive Democrat first nominated to the diplomatic post by Biden in July 2021.
With several Democrats defecting, Garcetti's fate rested with Republican senators in a chamber often divided along partisan lines. He secured seven GOP votes, more than enough to make up for the Democratic breakaways.
Kansas Republican Roger Marshall said having an ambassador in place in India was vital in advancing relations among members of the “quad” — the U.S. India, Australia and Japan, which he said puts pressure on China.
“We don't agree on all the different policies he did as mayor, but I think he's a good person at heart and he would be a good ambassador,” Marshall said. He said on the allegations: “He answered my questions adequately.”
At the White House, spokesperson Olivia Dalton said Biden “believes that we have a crucial and consequential partnership with India and that Mayor Garcetti will make a strong and effective ambassador.”
The vacancy in the ambassadorship had left a significant diplomatic gap for the administration at a time of rising global tensions, including China's increasingly assertive presence in the Pacific region and Russia's war with Ukraine.
India, the world's most populous democracy, is continuing to buy oil from Russia, while Western governments move to limit fossil fuel earnings that support Moscow's budget, its military and its invasion of Ukraine. Russia also provides most of India's military hardware.
The nomination had been freighted with questions about what the former mayor knew, and when, about sexual harassment allegations against his friend and once-close adviser, Rick Jacobs. A lawsuit alleges that Jacobs frequently harassed one of the thenmayor's police bodyguards while Garcetti ignored the abuse or laughed it off.
Garcetti, the son of former Los Angeles district attorney Gil Garcetti, has repeatedly denied the claims. Jacobs has called the allegations against him “pure fiction.” The case is scheduled to go to trial later this year.
At a Senate committee hearing in December 2021, Garcetti said, “I never witnessed, nor was it brought to my attention, the behavior that's been alleged. … If it had been, I would have immediately taken action to stop that.”
Wednesday's vote tested Democratic loyalty to Biden, and also measured assessments of Garcetti's judgment and trustworthiness, stemming from the City Hall allegations that shadowed him in the #MeToo era.
“I think we can find somebody that will do the job better,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, a Democrat who opposed Garcetti.
Garcetti also failed to win over Democrat Mark Kelly of Arizona, who said he had “serious concerns.”
Rachel Rizzo, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, said she sensed frustration about the lack of an ambassador during a recent trip to India. She said it gave “an impression that the relationship isn't important.”
“It really points to the internal dysfunction in the U.S. Congress at the moment, and it makes it very hard for us to send the messages that we're trying to send when it looks to our diplomatic partners that we don't have our house in order,” she said.