Nominations do-over

Congress adjourned without acting on these nominees

When the Senate formally adjourned for the year a little after 10 a.m. on Christmas Eve, seven high-level nominations from the White House were left hanging. As a result, if President Obama wants any of these folks to take these jobs, which require Senate confirmation, he'll have to renominate them in 2010, as CQ's Jennifer Scholtes reports.

Who are they?

Three were Justice Department nominees: Dawn Johnsen, who has long awaited confirmation to be head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), and Christopher Schroeder and Mary L. Smith to be assistant attorney generals.

Two were Obama choices to sit as U.S. district court judges: Louis B. Butler and Edward M. Chen.

Another, Craig Becker, was to be a member of the National Labor Relations Board. And David A. Teeples was nominated to be a brigadier general in the Army.

It's not unheard of for nominations to be left uncomfirmed before the Senate adjourns and sometimes simple scheduling can play a role. But before sending these names back to the White House to be renominated, the Senate confirmed 300 others to a wide range of administration positions.

--Scott Montgomery, Congress.org

 

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