Three Democrats (So Far) Will Oppose Summers Appointment

Maybe Obama should appoint Janet Yellin to head the Fed, because Larry Summers isn’t getting a whole lot of love:

Lawrence H. Summers’s prospects of becoming chairman of the Federal Reserve have become murkier since three key Democratic senators signaled in recent days that they would oppose his nomination.

Senator Jon Tester, Democrat of Montana and a member of the Banking Committee, said on Friday that he would vote against sending Mr. Summers’s nomination to the full Senate for a confirmation vote. Two of Mr. Tester’s fellow Democrats on the committee, Senators Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Sherrod Brown of Ohio, have also signaled through their aides that they would vote no.

Such resistance complicates matters for Mr. Summers because without the votes of those three Democrats, he would need Republican support on the Banking Committee, where Democrats have a three-vote majority. The panel holds the first vote on any nominee to lead the Fed.

By: dave-dr-gonzo

David Hirsch, a.k.a. Dave "Doctor" Gonzo*, is a renegade record producer, video producer, writer, reformed corporate shill, and still-registered lobbyist for non-one-percenter performing artists and musicians. He lives in a heavily fortified compound in one of Manhattan's less trendy neighborhoods.

* Hirsch is the third person to use the pseudonym, a not-so-veiled tribute to journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson, with the permission of his predecessors Gene Gaudette of American Politics Journal (currently webmaster and chief bottlewasher at Liberaland) and Stephen Meese at Smashmouth Politics.