Senate close to voting on Mexico ambassador

The Senate could soon vote on a stalled nomination for ambassador to Mexico.

Prominent Republican senators are close to breaking Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-Fla.) hold on Roberta Jacobson, President Barack Obama’s nominee, Politico reported.

{mosads}Majority Whip John Cornyn of Texas has led the push to get Rubio to accept provisions in a bill related to Venezuela in exchange for lifting his hold. 

Jacobson, the assistant secretary of State for Western Hemisphere affairs, was nominated in July and cleared the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in November despite heavy opposition from then-presidential candidate Rubio and Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.). Rubio took exception to Jacobson’s role in Obama’s Cuba policy.

Menendez told The Hill in March that his solution to the impasse was “to hold a vote on her” despite his opposition, based on Jacobson’s management of affairs with Venezuela.

The United States has been without an ambassador in Mexico City since Ambassador Earl Anthony Wayne retired in July.

The Mexican senate ratified Amb. Carlos Sada Solana as ambassador to the United States Thursday. Sada replaces Ambassador Miguel Basáñez Ebergenyi, who was dismissed after only seven months on the job in a shake-up designed to prop up Mexico’s image in the United States.