Vote on Biden Fed picks delayed as GOP presses for answers on Raskin

Sen. Sherrod Brown, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, said Tuesday afternoon that the committee will delay its votes on five of President Joe Biden’s nominees to the Federal Reserve as Republicans protest the candidacy of Sarah Bloom Raskin.

The Banking Committee had been scheduled to vote on whether to recommend Raskin and four of the president’s other picks to lead the Fed, but could not reach a necessary quorum without Republican attendance.

“I will delay votes on these nominees. We will update you when we’ve rescheduled,” Brown said Tuesday afternoon. “Republicans have walked out on the American people.”

After making the announcement, Brown held an unofficial vote to drive home the point that Democrats are in support of the president’s nominees. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., clarified that she is a “yes” on all nominees except for incumbent Fed Chair Jerome Powell.

Committee Ranking member Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania announced earlier in the day that the GOP would boycott the nomination vote thanks to their ongoing “revolving door” concerns about Raskin’s prior work for Reserve Trust, a fintech firm she worked for shortly after leaving the Obama administration.

Biden in December nominated Powell and Lael Brainard to serve as the Fed’s chair and vice chair, respectively. The president later nominated Raskin to serve as vice chair for supervision, as well as Lisa Cook and Philip Jefferson to be Fed board governors.

But the committee’s Republicans have repeatedly criticized Raskin and her previous work for Reserve Trust.

Late last week, Toomey said in a letter Raskin lobbied Kansas City Fed President Esther George in 2017 to advocate for the fintech company and its application for a special account at the central bank. The Fed previously denied Reserve Trust’s request for special access to the central bank’s payments system.

At the time she placed the call, Raskin had just left her role as the Treasury Department’s deputy secretary, a role she served in after more than three years at the Fed as one of its governors.

Following her personal intervention on the company’s behalf, the Kansas City Fed approved the company’s second request for an account in 2018. The Kansas City Fed claims that its reversal was not the result of Raskin’s call and that it followed all the usual protocols in evaluating Reserve Trust’s second application.

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