Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) says Russell Vought is a ’threat to democracy.”
Russell Vought, President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), has inched one step closer to being the White House budget chief.
Following a closed Jan. 30 meeting, Senate Budget Committee Republicans voted 11–0 in favor of Vought’s nomination. His nomination will now be sent to the Senate floor in the coming days.
Democrats on the panel boycotted the vote, criticizing their Republican colleagues for not making the meeting accessible to the public.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), flanked by Democratic lawmakers, urged Vought to return to the committee “to give the American people some honest answers.”
“I fully support the committee’s decision not to participate in this sham process,” Schumer said.
Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), the top Democrat on the Budget Committee, said Vought “is dangerously unfit” to serve at the OMB and “a threat to democracy.”
“This nomination is so troubling that certainly the discussion between the public, between members of the committee should be held in public, and we should benefit from each other’s concerns and perspectives before a vote is held,” Merkley said.
According to Sen. Ben Ray Lujan (D-N.M.), the U.S. public was “left out of the room.”
“That’s only going to create more chaos and more confusion,” he said.
“What are they trying to hide? What are they afraid [of]?” Sen. Alexa Padilla (D-Calif.) said. “And so yes, we are here in this room today because this kind of behavior cannot be business as usual.”
Leading up to the committee’s vote, Democratic lawmakers urged Republicans to postpone it.
“We have a constitutional crisis,” Merkley said.
“I am urging the Senate Budget Committee Chair Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a fellow appropriator, to hold Russ Vought’s nomination that’s supposed to occur this Thursday,” Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), ranking Democrat member on the Appropriations Committee, said at a Jan. 29 press conference. “Republicans should not advance that nomination out of committee until the Trump administration follows the law.”
By Andrew Moran
