GOP Takes Control of the Senate — Keep Calm But Don’t Pack Your Bags!

November 5, 2014 By in Americans Abroad, Appointments, Career Employees, Congress, Elections, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Service, FSOs, John F. Kerry, Obama, Political Appointees, Politics, Realities of the FS, Staffing the FS, State Department, U.S. Missions, USAID Tags: , , , , ,

— Domani Spero
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This happened last night, and pretty quickly, too.

 

The Nation lists Staffing the Executive Branch as one of the possible problematic area after the GOP take-over of the U.S. Senate:

For much of the Obama presidency, Republicans in the Senate stymied up literally hundreds of presidential appointments to cabinet slots big and small, as well as nominations to the federal bench. Harry Reid implemented filibuster reform one year ago, and nominations have been handled more quickly—but with Republicans in charge, expect them to grind to a halt. Republicans blocked nominees reflexively under the old filibuster rules, many times without offering a single actual objection, and that’s very likely to resume now.

The recent Yahoo article about the State Department being top heavy with political picks, also include the following nugget:

A top GOP aide, asked what would happen to the stalled “ambassadonor” nominations, signaled that those would-be diplomats shouldn’t pack their bags.

When it comes to confirmations of Obama nominees in a Republican Senate, the aide said dryly, “partisan picks and Obama bundlers won’t be at the top of the list.”

So — in real terms, that means no one can pack their bags or schedule any packout. Maybe, we’ll see some confirmation of career diplomats to ambassadorial positions this year.  Or maybe not. What might be more problematic, of course, would be the confirmation of presidential bundlers nominated as ambassadors to some of our overseas posts. If the clock runs out and none of these nominees get confirmation this year, President Obama will have to resubmit these nominations to the next Congress in January 2015. A GOP-controlled Senate may or may not act on these nominations.

keep-calm-but-don-t-pack-your-bags

The following are the ambassadorial nominees currently pending on the Senate’s Executive Calendar. They have all been cleared by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee but could not get voted on in the full Senate:

Ambassadorial Nominees: Career Diplomats

  • Karen Clark Stanton, of Michigan, to be Ambassador to the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste
  • Donald Lu, of California, to be Ambassador to the Republic of Albania
  • Amy Jane Hyatt, of California, to be Ambassador to the Republic of Palau
  • Arnold A. Chacon, of Virginia, to be Director General of the Foreign Service
  • Luis G. Moreno, of Texas, to be Ambassador to Jamaica
  • Maureen Elizabeth Cormack, of Virginia, to be Ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina
  • Theodore G. Osius III, of Maryland, to be Ambassador to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam
  • Leslie Ann Bassett, of California, to be Ambassador to the Republic of Paraguay
  • George Albert Krol, of New Jersey, to be Ambassador to the Republic of Kazakhstan
  • Marcia Stephens Bloom Bernicat, of New Jersey, to be Ambassador to the People’s Republic of Bangladesh
  • James D. Pettit, of Virginia, to be Ambassador to the Republic of Moldova
  • Allan P. Mustard, of Washington, to be Ambassador to Turkmenistan
  • Erica J. Barks Ruggles, of Minnesota, to be Ambassador to the Republic of Rwanda
  • Earl Robert Miller, of Michigan, to be Ambassador to the Republic of Botswana
  • Judith Beth Cefkin, of Colorado, to be Ambassador to the Republic of Fiji, and to serve concurrently and without additional compensation as Ambassador to the Republic of Kiribati, the Republic of Nauru, the Kingdom of Tonga, and Tuvalu
  • James Peter Zumwalt, of California, to be Ambassador to the Republic of Senegal and to serve concurrently and without additional compensation as Ambassador to the Republic of Guinea-Bissau
  • Craig B. Allen, of Virginia, to be Ambassador to Brunei Darussalam
  • Barbara A. Leaf, of Virginia, to be Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates
  • Virginia E. Palmer, of Virginia, to be Ambassador to the Republic of Malawi
  • William V. Roebuck, of North Carolina, to be Ambassador to the Kingdom of Bahrain
  • Pamela Leora Spratlen, of California, to be Ambassador to the Republic of Uzbekistan
  • Donald L. Heflin, of Virginia, to be Ambassador to the Republic of Cabo Verde
  • Robert T. Yamate, of California, to be Ambassador to the Republic of Madagascar, and to serve concurrently and without additional compensation as Ambassador to the Union of the Comoros
  • Gentry O. Smith, of North Carolina, to be Director of the Office of Foreign Missions, and to have the rank of Ambassador during his tenure of service
  • Linda Thomas-Greenfield, an Assistant Secretary of State (African Affairs), to be a Member of the Board of Directors of the African Development Foundation for the remainder of the term expiring September 27, 2015
  • Michele Jeanne Sison, of Maryland, to be the Deputy Representative of the United States of America to the United Nations, with the rank and status of Ambassador, and the Deputy Representative of the United States of America in the Security Council of the United Nations
  • Brent Robert Hartley, of Oregon, to be Ambassador to the Republic of Slovenia

 

Ambassadorial Nominees: Non-Career Political Appointees

  • George James Tsunis, of New York, to be Ambassador to the Kingdom of Norway
  • Colleen Bradley Bell, of California, to be Ambassador to Hungary
  • Robert C. Barber, of Massachusetts, to be Ambassador to the Republic of Iceland
  • Mark Gilbert, of Florida, to be Ambassador to New Zealand, and to serve concurrently and without additional compensation as Ambassador to the Independent State of Samoa
  • John L. Estrada, of Florida, to be Ambassador to the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago
  • Brent Robert Hartley, of Oregon, to be Ambassador to the Republic of Slovenia
  • Cassandra Q. Butts, of the District of Columbia, to be Ambassador to the Commonwealth of The Bahamas
  • Noah Bryson Mamet, of California, to be Ambassador to the Argentine Republic
  • Stafford Fitzgerald Haney, of New Jersey, to be Ambassador to the Republic of Costa Rica
  • Charles C. Adams, Jr., of Maryland, to be Ambassador to the Republic of Finland
  • Frank A. Rose, of Massachusetts, to be an Assistant Secretary of State (Verification and Compliance)
  • Catherine Ann Novelli, of Virginia, to be United States Alternate Governor of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (currently Under Secretary for State/E)
  • David Nathan Saperstein, of the District of Columbia, to be Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom
  • Paige Eve Alexander, of Virginia, to be an Assistant Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)
  • Jonathan Nicholas Stivers, of the District of Columbia, to be an Assistant Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)

 

We’ll have to see what happens next.

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