Republican Resistance Looms in the Senate for Biden’s Nominees – By Carl Hulse (The New York Times) / Nov 21 2020
WASHINGTON — Sen. Bernie Sanders, the progressive Vermont independent, has emerged as a contender for labor secretary in President-elect Joe Biden’s administration, a prospect that would suit his ambitions of being a warrior for working Americans — and one that makes some Senate Republicans very uneasy.
“I think that is somebody who we know is an ideologue and, well, it would be very unlikely he would be confirmed in a Republican-held Senate,” said Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, one of multiple Republicans who said Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, would be unlikely to win the chamber’s approval.
It is a testament to the deterioration of the Senate confirmation process that a longtime colleague — even one they vehemently oppose on policy — would face such a Republican roadblock. In the not-too-distant past, fellow senators got considerable leeway from the opposing party if they were selected to join the executive branch.
“The truth is, to the best of my knowledge, there has been a courtesy within the Senate that when a president nominates senators, they have been approved,” Sanders said in an interview.
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