Joe Biden’s first nominee to be rejected on the Senate floor is the result of Democrat leadership’s lack of organization and a startling inability to handle the legislative calendar, according to multiple meetings with senior Senate staffers.
The Senate refused David Weil’s nomination for a leading Department of Labor post on Wednesday evening, a significant impact on labor interests and Biden’s domestic schedule. It was a shame for Democratic Party Senate Leadership, which tends not to bring votes to the Senate flooring unless they know that they can win the vote. Weil’s election was given the floor and voted down by all 50 Republicans as well as three Democrats– Sens. Joe Manchin (W.Va.), Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.), and also Mark Kelly (Ariz.).
The spectacular defeat was due to a combination of Democratic work-from-home-policies and also inexperienced whipping by party leaders, according to numerous Senate sources associated with the vote. The vote was defined in Politico as a “fiasco” and a “kind of thing [that] just doesn’t happen.” Usually, the outlet wrote, party leaders withdraw nominees in order to save face prior to a doomed confirmation vote.
One Senate office levied the accusation that Manchin, Sinema, and Kelly chose to pan Weil at the last possible moment after it became clear that Kamala Harris was not going to make it to the Senate in time to break a possible 50-50 deadlock. The failure to secure Harris for the vote, the source told the Free Beacon, came because many staffers on the Democratic side of the aisle are still functioning remotely, making both whipping votes and timing them significantly hard.
“They couldn’t get to Harris in time,” the individual said. “It’s not like anyone was working in their office.”
Sinema as well as Kelly were targeted with an aggressive campaign back home in Arizona to reject Weil, however, even business groups advising them to vote against the nomination were shocked by his defeat. The Taxpayers Protection Alliance, which ran advertisements in Arizona stating that Weil desired “to turn Arizona into California,” stated Weil’s devastating failure of a confirmation vote caught them by surprise.
“This was not something I expected, honestly,” the group’s president David Williams told the Free Beacon. “I think Schumer got bullied into doing this and now he has egg on his face.”
Senate offices state Schumer has been trying a brand-new strategy of stacking ballots, and there is conjecture that he simply threw the ballot to the floor without knowing whether Weil would surely be verified. Republican Senate offices laid the blame for the dropped vote at the feet of Democratic legislator Dick Durbin (Ill.), who has served as majority whip since last year. Weil’s ballot, one elderly staffer said, was set up in the nick of time– an indication that Durbin had not made certain every Democrat in the 50-50 split chamber would elect to verify Weil.
“Democrats are just really bad at this,” the staffer said. “I’m not surprised their whip operation f-cked up.”
Schumer’s and Durbin’s offices did not reply to a requests for comment.
Biden chose Weil in June to act as manager of the Wage and Hour Division in the Labor Department, a position he formerly held during the Obama administration. Weil dealt with resistance from company groups over concerns that he would apply severe policies on independent specialists and also franchise business.
Organization groups such as the Taxpayers Protection Alliance raised issues over Weil’s advocacy for rigid employee policies, including a California law that would certainly no longer identify Uber and also Lyft vehicle drivers as independent service providers and entitle them to the same advantages and also securities as full-time workers.
Biden’s Labor Secretary Marty Walsh made Weil’s confirmation a top priority for his department, attempting to rally support behind Weil and score a win for a President who frequently touts himself as one of the most pro-union administrations in contemporary history. The Biden regime’s fraying connection with members of Biden’s very own party has actually caused a number of high-profile defeats in recent months– the White House in March withdrew its nomination of Sarah Bloom Raskin for a powerful regulatory post at the Federal Reserve after Manchin came out against the nepotistic pick. Raskin is the wife of Congressman Jaime Raskin (D-MD) who served as impeachment manager in the second failed attempt to impeach President Trump.
Weil’s defeat casts further doubt on whether the new centerpiece of Biden’s labor program, the PRO Act, can pass, despite having Democratic control of both chambers of Congress. The bill, which passed in the House of Representatives in 2021 and would wipe out right-to-work laws in 28 states and also increase fines on firms for labor infractions, remains delayed in the Senate.
H/T The Washington Free Beacon
