Category Archives: SFRC

State/T to SFRC in Full Swagger and Smirk, “You’ll have to ask Russia”

May 17, 2019 By in Foreign Affairs, Functional Bureaus, Hearings, Huh? News, SFRC, State Department, Trends, U.S. Senate Tags: , ,

 

 

 

 

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Senators Van Hollen and Sullivan Introduce the Foreign Service Families Act (S.1293)

May 10, 2019 By in Congress, Foreign Service, Realities of the FS, Senators, SFRC, Spouses, Staffing the FS, U.S. Senate Tags: , , , , ,

 

U.S. Senators Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), cofounders of the bipartisan Foreign Service Caucus, have introduced the Foreign Service Families Act (S.1293), a bill to expand employment opportunities for spouses of Foreign Service officers.

Senator Van Hollen’s press statement notes that “This legislation will help ensure that the State Department is able to attract and retain a world-class diplomatic corps by providing expanded career options and services to eligible family members. For many of these family members, the process of finding employment isn’t easy — frequent moves, language barriers, and limited options pose significant challenges. This legislation will address that issue so our Foreign Service can continue to serve the best interests of Americans at home and abroad.”

According to Senator Van Hollen’s press statement, The Foreign Service Families Act would provide authority to the State Department to offer the same services to Foreign Service family members overseas that the Defense Department is permitted to provide to military families. This includes:

  • Expanded hiring authority and preference for qualified spouses
  • Ensuring that Foreign Services spouses receive notice of State Department vacancies and that those who apply receive consideration
  • Making space available in State Department facilities for outside entities to provide career services
  • Developing partnerships with the private sector to enhance employment opportunities for Foreign Service spouses, and
  • Incorporating hiring preferences for qualified Foreign Service spouses into contracts between the Department of State and private-sector entities.

Additionally the legislation:

  • Directs the State Department to expand telecommuting opportunities for Foreign Service family members, so that family members can continue to work federal civilian and private sector jobs while overseas
  • Ensures that family members in the Expanded Professional Associates Program, which offers career opportunities for family members with advanced education and professional experience, are not held to unfair hiring standards, and
  • Makes sure that the State Department has fully implemented the Foreign Service Family Reserve Corps, a program intended to speed hiring and improve clearance portability for Foreign Service family members.

The bill has been “read twice and referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations.” We’ve searched for the text but have not yet been able to locate it.  According to congress.gov, as of 05/10/2019 text has not been received for S.1293: “Bills are generally sent to the Library of Congress from GPO, the Government Publishing Office, a day or two after they are introduced on the floor of the House or Senate. Delays can occur when there are a large number of bills to prepare or when a very large bill has to be printed.”

Govtrack notes that the United States Congress considers about 5,000 bills and resolutions each year, but of those only about 7% will become law. All bills not enacted by the end of the session on Jan 3, 2021 die, and Congress will start over.

 

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@StateDept Gets Closer to Getting an Under Secretary for Management, Vacant Since January 2017

May 10, 2019 By in Appointments, Mike Pompeo, Nominations, Political Appointees, Senators, SFRC, State Department, U.S. Senate Tags: , ,

 

SFRC Clears 9 @StateDept, Peace Corps and MCC Nominees

May 8, 2019 By in assistant secretaries, Nominations, SFRC, State Department, U.S. Senate Tags: ,

On May 2, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee cleared the following nominations paving the way for their full vote in the U.S. Senate:

Mr. Brian J. Bulatao, of Texas, to be an Under Secretary of State (Management)

Mr. David Schenker, of New Jersey, to be an Assistant Secretary of State (Near Eastern Affairs)

Mr. Robert A. Destro, of Virginia, to be an Assistant Secretary of State (Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor)

The Honorable David Michael Satterfield, of Missouri, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Career Minister, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of Turkey

Mr. Edward F. Crawford, of Ohio, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to Ireland

Ms. Kate Marie Byrnes, of Florida, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Minister-Counselor, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of North Macedonia

The Honorable James S. Gilmore, of Virginia, to be U.S. Representative to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, with the rank of Ambassador

Mr. Alan R. Swendiman, of North Carolina, to be Deputy Director of the Peace Corps

Mr. Sean Cairncross, of Minnesota, to be Chief Executive Officer, Millennium Challenge Corporation

 

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SFRC Clears 15 @StateDept Nominees

April 15, 2019 By in Congress, Nominations, Senators, SFRC, U.S. Senate Tags: , ,

 

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has not actually forgotten the nominees from the State Department. On April 3, the panel finally cleared a few nominations and advanced the following nominees for their full Senate  votes. As of this writing, the following nominees are still pending in the Senate’s Executive Calendar.

Career Nominations

PN122 Michael J. Fitzpatrick, of Virginia, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Minister-Counselor, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of Ecuador.

PN133 W. Patrick Murphy, of Vermont, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Minister-Counselor, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Kingdom of Cambodia.

PN146 Matthew H. Tueller, of Utah, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Minister-Counselor, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of Iraq.

 

Non-Career Nominations

PN104 Stephen Akard, of Indiana, to be Director of the Office of Foreign Missions, with the rank of Ambassador.

PN108 Lynda Blanchard, of Alabama, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of Slovenia.

PN114 Joseph Cella, of Michigan, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of Fiji, and to serve concurrently and without additional compensation as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of Kiribati, the Republic of Nauru, the Kingdom of Tonga, and Tuvalu.

PN123 Kenneth S. George, of Texas, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Oriental Republic of Uruguay.

PN126 Jeffrey Ross Gunter, of California, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of Iceland.

PN129 Ronald Douglas Johnson, of Florida, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of El Salvador.

PN143 Donald R. Tapia, of Arizona, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to Jamaica.

PN116 R. Clarke Cooper, of Florida, to be an Assistant Secretary of State (Political-Military Affairs).

PN141 David Stilwell, of Hawaii, to be an Assistant Secretary of State (East Asian and Pacific Affairs).

PN260 Keith Krach, of California, to be an Under Secretary of State (Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment).

PN105 John Barsa, of Florida, to be an Assistant Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development.

PN101 Richard C. Parker, of North Carolina, to be an Assistant Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development.

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Congress Demands Pompeo Turn Over Documents on Political Targeting of @StateDept Employees

March 19, 2019 By in Career Employees, Congress, Govt Documents, Mike Pompeo, Oversight, Political Appointees, Politics, Pompeo, Realities of the FS, Rex Tillerson, Secretary of State, Senators, SFRC, State Department Tags: , , , ,

 

On March 15, Representative Eliot L. Engel, Chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, and Senator Bob Menendez, Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations “denounced the State Department’s attempts to obstruct investigations into reports of politically-motivated retaliation against career Department employees.”

In a letter to Secretary Pompeo, they demanded that “the Department comply with past Congressional requests for information on this matter, stretching back over the past year.”

“To date, despite three specific requests and multiple follow-up efforts by our offices, the Department has failed to respond to our requests for interviews or provide any responsive records. After nearly a year, it suggests the State Department is stonewalling a legitimate congressional request for information on matters that are squarely within our Committees’ oversight jurisdiction. We are therefore restating our demand for a response to our prior queries on this matter and are prepared to use appropriate tools at our disposal to prompt a substantive response.”

The congressional demand requires that the Department submit all documents requested by March 21 and facilitate Committee interviews with Department officials implicated in this matter by April 30.

Among the items requested:

(1) all documents and communications referring or relating to any reassignment or proposed reassignment that was considered or ordered since January 20, 2017, of career or civil service employees at the Department;

(2) all documents and communications referring or relating to any proposed or actual reassignment or removal of career or civil service employees at the Department since January 20, 2017, based on alleged personal political beliefs, prior service with previous Administrations, or work on prior Administrations’ foreign policy priorities, including any documents authored by, copying, involving, or referring to:

(a) Christine Ciccone;

(b) Makan Delrahim;

(c) Sean Doocey;

(d) Julia Haller;

(e) Brian Hook;

(f) Edward Lacey;

(g) Matthew Mowers; or

(h) Margaret Peterlin; and

(3) all documents and communications referring or relating to proposed or actual personnel actions since January 20, 2017, against Sahar Nowrouzzadeh, including the curtailment of her detail to the Policy Planning staff.

The congressional request also notes:

“To the extent that the Department may have been relying on a legal theory that our requests somehow lapsed at the end of the 115th Congress, we write today to dispense with that argument and hereby formally restate our prior requests.”

The congressional request asks for transcribed interviews with the following individuals.

A schedule of availability for the Committees to conduct transcribed interviews with each of the following individuals, with the first interview to be conducted no later than April 1, 2019, and with all interviews to be conducted no later than April 30, 2019:

(a) Christine Ciccone;

(b) Makan Delrahim;

(c) Sean Doocey;

(d) Julia Haller;

(e) Brian Hook;

(f) Edward Lacey;

(g) Matthew Mowers;

(h) Margaret Peterlin;

(i) Andrew Veprek;

(j) John Zadrozny; and

(k) Kevin Moley

This request has been overgrown with grass;  some of those they want to interview are no longer in Foggy Bottom. It looks like Congress sent their first request on March 15, 2018, two days after Tillerson was fired in a tweet. The full statement from Rep. Engel and Senator Menendez is available here. The letter to Secretary Pompeo is here.

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Trump Says He’ll Nominate Embassy Ottawa’s Kelly Craft to be UN Ambassador

February 25, 2019 By in Ambassadors, Political Appointees, SFRC, Trump, U.S. Missions, UN Tags: , , ,

Posted: 3:12 am EST

 

So the 6-minute pitch did not work.  On February 22, President Trump announced via Twitter that he is nominating the current U.S.Ambassador to Canada Kelly Craft to be the next  Ambassador to the United Nations (also see Craft, Kelly – Canada – June 2017).  As of this writing, the WH has not posted a formal announcement on its website, and senate.gov does not indicate this nomination as officially pending in committee.

For a quick history of this position, click here.

Prior appointees to this position include Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. (1953–1960), a former senator and nominee for Vice President. He went on to four ambassadorial appointments and as personal representative of the president to the Holy See after his UN tenure. Former President George Herbert Walker Bush served as Representative of the U.S.A. to the United Nations from 1971 to 1973.

Career diplomat Charles Woodruff Yost (1969–1971) was a three-time ambassador with a personal rank of Career Ambassador prior to his UN appointment. Career diplomat Thomas Reeve Pickering (1989–1992) was a four-time ambassador, and assistant secretary of state with a personal rank of Career Ambassador prior to his appointment to the UN. John Dimitri Negroponte (2001–2004), a career diplomat served as an assistant secretary and was confirmed three times previously as ambassador prior to his appointment to the UN.

Madeleine Korbel Albright (1993–1997), the first woman Secretary of State previously served as chief legislative assistant to Senator Edmund Muskie (D-Me) from 1976 to 1978. From 1978 to 1981, she served as a staff member in the White House under President Jimmy Carter and on the National Security Council under National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski. Richard Charles Albert Holbrooke (1999–2001) served twice as assistant secretary of state and was an ambassador prior to his UN appointment.

 

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Senate Returns @StateDept Nominations to the President

January 5, 2019 By in Foreign Service, Nominations, Political Appointees, Senators, SFRC, State Department, Trump, U.S. Senate, UN, USAID Tags: , , , ,

Updated: Jan 5, 5:19 pm PST

Prior to adjournment of the 115th Congress, the U.S. Senate returned the following State Department and related agencies’ nominations to the President under its Senate Rule. Note that some of the links posted from the floor activity site are not working on the congress.gov website as it changes to the current congress. We’re leaving the links “as is” on purpose should readers want to search the nomination on the congress.gov site. Use the radio button to select “Nomination” and enter the PN number on the search bar to see additional details for each nomination.

We anticipate that most of these nominees will be renominated. Will do a follow-up post when it happens.

STATE DEPARTMENT

PN2139: Brian J. Bulatao, of Texas, to be an Under Secretary of State (Management)– Returned to the President under the provisions of Senate Rule XXXI, paragraph 6 of the Standing Rules of the Senate.
PN2444: Marshall Billingslea, of Virginia, to be an Under Secretary of State (Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights)– Returned to the President under the provisions of Senate Rule XXXI, paragraph 6 of the Standing Rules of the Senate
PN1762: Stephen Akard, of Indiana, to be Director of the Office of Foreign Missions, with the rank of Ambassador– Returned to the President under the provisions of Senate Rule XXXI, paragraph 6 of the Standing Rules of the Senate.
PN1769: David Schenker, of New Jersey, to be an Assistant Secretary of State (Near Eastern Affairs)– Returned to the President under the provisions of Senate Rule XXXI, paragraph 6 of the Standing Rules of the Senate.
PN2580: David Stilwell, of Hawaii, to be an Assistant Secretary of State (East Asian and Pacific Affairs)– Returned to the President under the provisions of Senate Rule XXXI, paragraph 6 of the Standing Rules of the Senate.
PN2207: Robert A. Destro, of Virginia, to be Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor– Returned to the President under the provisions of Senate Rule XXXI, paragraph 6 of the Standing Rules of the Senate.
PN2232: R. Clarke Cooper, of Florida, to be an Assistant Secretary of State (Political-Military Affairs)– Returned to the President under the provisions of Senate Rule XXXI, paragraph 6 of the Standing Rules of the Senate.
PN2029: Ronald Mortensen, of Utah, to be an Assistant Secretary of State (Population, Refugees, and Migration)– Returned to the President under the provisions of Senate Rule XXXI, paragraph 6 of the Standing Rules of the Senate.

AMBASSADORS

PN1379: Leandro Rizzuto, of New Jersey, to be Ambassador to Barbados, and to serve concurrently and without additional compensation as Ambassador to the Federation of Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Antigua and Barbuda, the Commonwealth of Dominica, Grenada, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines– Returned to the President under the provisions of Senate Rule XXXI, paragraph 6 of the Standing Rules of the Senate.
PN1384: Doug Manchester, of California, to be Ambassador to the Commonwealth of The Bahamas– Returned to the President under the provisions of Senate Rule XXXI, paragraph 6 of the Standing Rules of the Senate.
PN1768: Kenneth S. George, of Texas, to be Ambassador to the Oriental Republic of Uruguay– Returned to the President under the provisions of Senate Rule XXXI, paragraph 6 of the Standing Rules of the Senate.
PN1638: Joseph Cella, of Michigan, 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– Returned to the President under the provisions of Senate Rule XXXI, paragraph 6 of the Standing Rules of the Senate.
PN2021: John Rakolta, Jr., of Michigan, to be Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates– Returned to the President under the provisions of Senate Rule XXXI, paragraph 6 of the Standing Rules of the Senate.

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115th Congress Final Day: Some Senate Confirmations

January 3, 2019 By in Ambassadors, assistant secretaries, Confirmations, Congress, Foreign Service, FSOs, Political Appointees, Senate Hold, Senators, SFRC, Staffing the FS, State Department, Top Ranks, U.S. Missions, UN, USAID Tags: , , , , , , ,

On January 2, the final day of the 15th Congress, the U.S. Senate did one mass confirmation of State Department, USAID and UN nominees. We’re going by the names tweeted by the Senate Cloakroom on Jan. 2 as there does not yet appear to be a list of the confirmed nominees. We previously posted the names pending on the Executive Calendar waiting for full Senate votes, see our post: Yo Wanna Spank Schumer But Not @Senatemajldr McConnell For Non-Confirmation of Ambassadors? Very Unfair!

All career ambassador nominees, with four exceptions, were confirmed. For political ambassador nominations, only two out of seven were confirmed (Australia and Kenya made it through). Two USAID and one UNFAO nominees also did not get their full Senate votes.

Based on that Executive Calendar list, we note that the following names were not/not included in the mass confirmation tweeted by @SenateCloakroom. Sometime tomorrow or the next day, we expect that these names, as well as those pending on the SFRC will be returned to the White House per Senate Rule. Most of the nominations that did not get a Senate vote today, and those pending in committee will most probably be renominated by the President within the next few days. We will have a separate posts if/when these nominees are renominated.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Stephen Akard, of Indiana, to be Director of the Office of Foreign Missions, with the rank of Ambassador, vice Gentry O. Smith, resigned.

AMBASSADORS (CAREER)
Robert K. Scott, of Maryland, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Counselor, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of Malawi.

Francisco Luis Palmieri, of Connecticut, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Minister-Counselor, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of Honduras

Daniel N. Rosenblum, of Maryland, a Career Member of the Senior Executive Service, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of Uzbekistan

Joseph E. Macmanus, of New York, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Minister-Counselor, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of Colombia.

AMBASSADORS (POLITICAL)
Jeffrey Ross Gunter, of California, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of Iceland.

Lynda Blanchard, of Alabama, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of Slovenia

Donald R. Tapia, of Arizona, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to Jamaica.

Joseph Cella, of Michigan, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of Fiji, and to serve concurrently and without additional compensation as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of Kiribati, the Republic of Nauru, the Kingdom of Tonga, and Tuvalu.

Kenneth S. George, of Texas, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Oriental Republic of Uruguay.

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Yo Wanna Spank Schumer But Not @Senatemajldr McConnell For Non-Confirmation of Ambassadors? Very Unfair!

January 1, 2019 By in Confirmations, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Service, Nominations, Political Appointees, Politics, Realities of the FS, Senate Hold, Senators, SFRC, Staffing the FS, State Department, Top Ranks, Trends, Trump, U.S. Senate, UN, USAID Tags: , , , , , ,

It looks like the President of the United States is ending 2018 by ranting that “heads of countries” are calling and asking why Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer “is not approving their otherwise approved Ambassadors.” Well, first, to be clear, if they are really calling the WH asking about this, they would not be calling about “their otherwise approved ambassadors” because that would mean, these countries are calling about “their” ambassadors representing them in Washington. As far as we know, the U.S. Senate is not the entity that grants agrément for foreign diplomats to be appointed to the United States.

The president appears to be talking about U.S. Ambassadors nominated to foreign countries, which means, these are “our” ambassadors, and not these countries’ ambassadors even if they are assigned to these mysterious countries (whose “heads of countries” are um apparently “calling” and asking about stuff). If this is kinda confusing, try and imagine Saudi Arabia’s MBS or Turkey’s Erdogan calling the WH and asking what Schumer did to “their otherwise approved Ambassador” – that is, the Saudi Arabian and Turkish Ambassadors to the United States. They would not call the U.S. Ambassadors destined to their respective countries “their” ambassadors. We doubt if MBS would even call and ask what Schumer did to John Abizaid, Trump’s nominee to be the U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia. Why would he? He got you know who. Would Erdogan call and ask what Schumer did to Trump’s nominee to be U.S. Ambassador to Turkey? He wouldn’t, cmon. There isn’t one.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1079830268708556800

Second, we should note that there are indeed multiple nominees pending on the Senate Calendar and waiting for their full Senate votes. Except for two nominations who are subjects to two Democratic Senate holds, the rest of the nominees have been waiting for GOP Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to put them up for a vote. Over the past year, the GOP appeared to prioritized the confirmation of judicial nominees. In the last 12 months, approximately 70 Judiciary nominees were confirmed while only about 47 State Department nominees were confirmed for the same duration (excluding USAID, UN, and Foreign Service lists).

We have a separate post on the nominations that are currently pending at the SFRC. We are anticipating that most of these nominees will be renominated at the beginning of the next Congress, and that most of them will probably get confirmation from the Senate given the GOP’s expanded majority in the 116th Congress. We don’t know how many more judicial nominees the GOP is planning to shovel through the confirmation process, however, but if there is a large enough number, those again could have an impact on the speed of confirmation for State Department nominees.

Below are the nominations pending in the Executive Calendar. May be there is a potential for the U.S. Senate to have mass confirmation of these nominations on January 2? You all can hope, right? We’ll have to wait and see. 

DEPARTMENT OF STATE

Carol Z. Perez, of Virginia, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of MinisterCounselor, to be Director General of the Foreign Service, vice Arnold A. Chacon, resigned.

Ellen E. McCarthy, of Virginia, to be an Assistant Secretary of State (Intelligence and Research), vice Daniel Bennett Smith.

Stephen Akard, of Indiana, to be Director of the Office of Foreign Missions, with the rank of Ambassador, vice Gentry O. Smith, resigned.

AMBASSADORS (CAREER)

Lynne M. Tracy, of Ohio, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of MinisterCounselor, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of Armenia.

Christopher Paul Henzel, of Virginia, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Minister-Counselor, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of Yemen.

Sarah-Ann Lynch, of Maryland, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Minister-Counselor, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Co-operative Republic of Guyana

Earle D. Litzenberger, of California, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Minister-Counselor, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of Azerbaijan.

Matthew John Matthews, of Virginia, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Minister-Counselor, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to Brunei Darussalam.

Michael S. Klecheski, of New York, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Minister-Counselor, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of Mongolia.

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