The Guardian’s Daniel Strauss reports:
A top Senate Republican who opposes Joe Biden’s nominee to run the Office of Management and Budget isn’t sure who a more reasonable alternative would be.
Rob Portman, the retiring senator from Ohio, was asked during a conference call with reporters who he would prefer the Biden administration nominate instead of Neera Tanden, the current president of the liberal think tank Center for American Progress.
Portman, who has already said he planned to vote against Tanden’s nomination, said he wasn’t sure but added that Sholanda Young, who was nominated to serve as the deputy director of the OMB, is popular on the Hill.
“Sholanda Young has a lot of support as a senior Hill staffer,” Portman said in response to a question from the Guardian.
Young was the first Black woman to serve as the staff director of the House Appropriations Committee. She has recently emerged as a top contender should Tanden’s nomination be voted down.
The comment from Portman, a former OMB director himself, comes as the Senate committees charged with holding hearings on Tanden’s nomination postponed their Wednesday meetings. The White House though continues to support Tanden’s nomination.
A few Republican senators and Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, one of the most conservative Democrats in the Senate, have already come out in opposition to Tanden, citing her sometimes adversarial Twitter presence and antagonistic comments to both Republicans and Democrats. Supporters have cried hypocrisy as those same Republican senators declined to criticize some of Donald Trump’s most incendiary tweets.
As of now, Tanden appears to lack the necessary support to be confirmed. If her nomination is withdrawn, she would be the first Biden nominee to fail to make it through the confirmation process.
Other names being floated include Martha Coven at Princeton University; Ann O’Leary, the former chief of staff to governor Gavin Newsom of California; Sara Bianchi, a former Biden aide, and Gene Sperling, a former aide to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
