In Wake of Scandal, VA Nominees Stuck in Senate Limbo

As the tur­moil over the VA scan­dal un­folds, three top posts in the De­part­ment of Vet­er­ans Af­fairs re­main va­cant be­cause of con­gres­sion­al foot-drag­ging to­ward full Sen­ate con­firm­a­tion.

A fourth key job — the de­part­ment’s in­spect­or gen­er­al — has re­mained va­cant for nearly half a year. The White House it­self has yet to even name a nom­in­ee for that post.

There is plenty of blame be­ing tossed around.

The man with the power to set the agenda, Sen­ate Ma­jor­ity Lead­er Harry Re­id of Nevada, pins it on Sen­ate Re­pub­lic­ans for hold­ing up more than 140 nom­in­a­tions across sev­er­al de­part­ments. He did so Tues­day when asked about the stalled nom­in­a­tion of Linda Schwartz to be as­sist­ant sec­ret­ary for policy and plan­ning at the VA.

Schwartz, who was nom­in­ated last Au­gust, was re­por­ted to the full Sen­ate again in Janu­ary, after ini­tially be­ing re­por­ted in Novem­ber. As ma­jor­ity lead­er, Re­id could put her nom­in­a­tion on the floor whenev­er he chooses. In­stead, he poin­ted to the nom­in­a­tions of judges and am­bas­sad­ors, some of which are sub­ject to delays and holds by the GOP, when asked why he had not ad­vanced the Schwartz nom­in­a­tion yet.

Re­id him­self sug­ges­ted the delay is be­cause of con­tin­ued fal­lout from chan­ging the Sen­ate rules in Novem­ber to clear nom­in­a­tions with only 51 votes, rather than 60.

“The Re­pub­lic­ans are con­tinu­ing their pout and we’re un­able to get the nom­in­a­tions done,” Re­id said. “I got a let­ter last April from the sec­ret­ary of De­fense to move these along. So we’ll get to her just as quick as we can.”

The ques­tion, Re­id’s spokes­man Adam Jentleson sug­ges­ted, is not why hasn’t Re­id ac­ted, but why have Re­pub­lic­ans forced Demo­crats to eat up time through the Sen­ate’s ar­cane pro­cess rules.

“Right now, Re­pub­lic­ans have a blanket ob­jec­tion to mov­ing vir­tu­ally all nom­in­ees and for­cing us to file clo­ture on every­one,” he said in a state­ment.

Re­pub­lic­ans say they have placed no of­fi­cial holds or oth­er­wise had any hand in block­ing or delay­ing full Sen­ate con­firm­a­tion votes on Pres­id­ent Obama’s picks for the oth­er three po­s­i­tions.

Sen­ate Vet­er­ans’ Af­fairs Com­mit­tee rank­ing mem­ber Richard Burr of North Car­o­lina said he has no ob­jec­tion to Schwartz’s nom­in­a­tion and said the delay was Re­id’s fault.

“Some weeks we do noth­ing but nom­in­ees,” Burr said. “And some weeks we do noth­ing.”

Schwartz, who con­tin­ues to serve as the Con­necti­c­ut state com­mis­sion­er of vet­er­ans’ af­fairs, ex­pressed some clear antsy-ness.

“This po­s­i­tion has been va­cant since Janu­ary of 2013, and I look for­ward to ful­filling the full in­tent of my nom­in­a­tion: as­sist­ing the VA in its mis­sion of serving vet­er­ans and provid­ing the sec­ret­ary with sol­id and thought­ful coun­sel,” Schwartz said.

She is her­self a former Air Force flight nurse, who med­ic­ally re­tired in 1986 after an air­craft ac­ci­dent. In her testi­mony to the Sen­ate com­mit­tee in Novem­ber, she told law­makers that her goals are “chal­len­ging the status quo” and as­sur­ing ser­vices worthy of vet­er­ans.

But that’s just one nom­in­ee.

The oth­er two nom­in­ees — Con­stance To­bi­as as chair of the Board of Vet­er­ans’ Ap­peals, and Helen Tier­ney as the de­part­ment’s chief fin­an­cial of­ficer — are still wait­ing for the Vet­er­ans’ Af­fairs Com­mit­tee to re­port their nom­in­a­tions this ses­sion.

The tim­ing is un­clear, and a spokes­man for Vet­er­ans’ Af­fairs Chair­man Bernie Sanders of Ver­mont did not say when to ex­pect them to head to the floor.

The pres­id­ent nom­in­ated Tier­ney in Oc­to­ber, but she has yet to see even com­mit­tee-level con­firm­a­tion. Tier­ney, who cur­rently heads the VA’s of­fice of man­age­ment, could not be reached Tues­day for com­ment.

To­bi­as, who cur­rently chairs the de­part­ment­al ap­peals board at the De­part­ment of Health and Hu­man Ser­vices, also did not re­spond through a spokes­man. To­bi­as was nom­in­ated for the VA post in Janu­ary 2012.

An­oth­er nom­in­a­tion, that of Jef­frey Mur­awsky to be un­der­sec­ret­ary for health, is also pending, but it was sub­mit­ted only this week by the White House upon the resig­na­tion of Robert Pet­zel in the wake of the VA scan­dal. The VA Com­mit­tee is still wait­ing on the ne­ces­sary pa­per­work from the White House be­fore schedul­ing a hear­ing for Mur­awsky, a Sen­ate aide said.

The Sen­ate has not delayed all VA nom­in­ees. Earli­er this year, the com­mit­tee for­war­ded Obama’s nom­in­a­tion of Sloan Gib­son to be the VA’s deputy sec­ret­ary, and the Sen­ate has since con­firmed him as the de­part­ment’s No. 2 of­ficer. He be­came act­ing sec­ret­ary upon Eric Shin­seki’s resig­na­tion last week.

But the oth­er nom­in­ees await their day on the floor as the Sen­ate con­tin­ues to grapple with the fal­lout of the scan­dal over delayed and dis­hon­est treat­ment of vet­er­ans at VA med­ic­al cen­ters.

Later this week, Sanders will hold a hear­ing where he’ll roll out le­gis­la­tion aimed at ad­dress­ing the is­sues. Re­id, of­fer­ing a pre­view of the bill, said it will not be as broad as a reau­thor­iz­a­tion bill that failed earli­er this year.

Mean­while, Re­id has put an of­fer on the table for Re­pub­lic­ans to re­view: a vote on a slightly mod­i­fied ver­sion of the bi­par­tis­an House-passed VA ac­count­ab­il­ity bill, in ex­change for a vote on the Sanders le­gis­la­tion.

Re­id hadn’t heard back from Re­pub­lic­ans on the deal; his of­fers have not been well re­ceived by GOP sen­at­ors lately, though.