The Senate failed to overcome a Republican blockage of Chuck Hagel’s nomination to be defense secretary yesterday, though his GOP critics said they will support advancing the confirmation vote during the final week of February.
The Democratic-led chamber voted 58-40 on a cloture motion filed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), which failed because 60 votes were required. The Senate is slated to hold the same procedural vote in two weeks, following next week’s congressional recess. The required number of Republicans yesterday said they will vote in favor of cloture at that time, thus setting up a final vote on Hagel’s confirmation within 30 hours.
“Democrats will continue to fight for Senator Hagel,” Reid said after yesterday late-afternoon vote. “Some Republican senators have said that they will change their votes, and allow his nomination to proceed at some point in the future. I will take them at their word, and I will hold them to their pledge.”
Four Republicans–Sens. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), and Mike Johanns (R-Neb.)–voted with Democrats and Independents in favor of yesterday’s failed cloture vote. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) voted “present” and Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) did not vote.
Hagel, a former Republican senator from Nebraska, annoyed his former colleagues when he opposed the war in Iraq. They now are raising concerns about past statements of his on Israel, Iran, nuclear weapons, and Pentagon budgeting (Defense Daily, Feb. 1).
Lawmakers said Defense Secretary Leon Panetta flew home to California yesterday, though he remains in charge of the Department of Defense as he waits for Hagel’s confirmation, which is expected by the end of February. March 1 is the date that the so-called sequestration cuts–which would tap $46 billion in Pentagon spending over the next seven months–will start, absent congressional intervention.
There are 55 members of the Democratic caucus, and before yesterday at least five Republicans were expected to join them in invoking cloture to allow the final vote to confirm Hagel. The final vote requires the support of a majority vote of 51 senators to pass.
Republicans, though, appeared to shift their strategy yesterday for how to approach the Hagel votes. The previous day, Hagel’s more-vocal critics insisted they would not actually filibuster his confirmation, but they were insisting that he should garner the support of 60 members of the 100-seat Senate. Then, early yesterday, Reid said Republican leaders indicated they would mount a “full-scale filibuster, and block the Senate from holding a final passage vote on Senator Hagel’s nomination.”
A Senate Democratic leadership aide said that “Senate Republican leadership has informed us that they intend to withhold the (60) votes needed to clear cloture and proceed to a final passage vote on the Hagel nomination.”
Senate Armed Services Committee Ranking Member James Inhofe (R-Okla.) insisted yesterday afternoon that Republicans were not filibustering and “don’t want to stretch” out Hagel’s confirmation process. Inhofe, though, argued that he believes that Hagel should have the support of 60 senators to be confirmed to the cabinet position.
Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) had threatened to hold up the vote in recent days as they waited for the White House to deliver information on the Sept. 11, 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya. McCain said they received their answer yesterday. Still, he, Graham, and Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said yesterday afternoon they needed more time to examine Hagel’s background. Graham, for example, said he wanted to learn more about a speech he did not know about previous in which Hagel reportedly made comments about the Israeli government.
“There are other questions,” McCain said. “But I think, during the break, it’s sufficient time to get any additional questions answered. And I will vote in favor of cloture on the day we get back, and I believe…my colleagues would do the same. I think that that is a sufficient period of time to get answers to outstanding question, and I think that Senator Hagel after that period of time deserves a cloture vote and (an) up-or-down vote on his nomination.” Graham similarly said that he expects, “unless there’s some explosive bombshell,” that he will vote in two weeks in favor of cloture but against confirming Hagel.
Two Republicans, Johanns and Cochran, have said they will support Hagel’s confirmation.
Republicans on the SASC voted against Hagel when the panel voted 14-11 on Tuesday to advance his nomination to the full Senate. Vitter did not participate in that party-line vote.
Ayotte expressed concerns before the SASC’s vote about Hagel’s approach to defense spending. She cited a Financial Times interview with Hagel from August 2011 in which a reporter asked him about “sequestration” budget cuts and he said the Pentagon “in many ways has been bloated” and “needs to be pared down.”
“In terms of shepherding the Pentagon, I certainly don’t think that we want to be in position of thinking…that the Pentagon is bloated or needs to be pared down,” Ayotte said Tuesday.
SASC member Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.) said she was satisfied with what Hagel said during his Jan. 31 confirmation hearing about sequestration, the politically unpopular cut of $500 billion to decade-long defense spending that lawmakers have been unable to stop.
“Sen. Hagel certainly shared my concern about the serious negative consequences that sequestration would have on North Carolina,” Hagan said on Tuesday.