Blame it on tough breaks related to COVID-19 panic but the chance that Judy Shelton will be confirmed as a governor of the Federal Reserve Board is razor-thin.
Two Republican Senate members, Charles E. Grassley and Rick Scott, who would have voted in her favor, are in quarantine and were not able to vote on the Shelton cloture vote yesterday. If either voted, it would have put her over the top.
But this is a big problem now: The Senate has just adjourned until November 30.
And at some point in the not too distant future, a Senate seat is going to switch from a Republican member to a Democratic member. That would doom a Shelton confirmation.
As Saleha Mohsin, the senior reporter covering the U.S. Treasury Department for Bloomberg News, explains, "It now comes down to when Mark Kelly is sworn in to replace [Arizona] Republican Martha McSally, who he defeated in a special election."
According to AZCentral, Kelly is eligible to take the oath of office as soon as Arizona certifies its election results, which is scheduled for Nov. 30. He expects to take office in early December.
But this is what makes things even closer. A November 30 cloture vote in favor would allow the Senate to limit consideration of a pending matter to 30 additional hours of debate. So when Kelly is sworn in and gets in town is what makes this razor-thin.
How do we get the certification delayed in Arizona?
Shelton may be a nut, but she might be our nut, no one else comes close in terms of getting a Fed nomination.
-RW
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