Liberals up pressure on key Dems over Treasury nominee
Liberal backers of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) are throwing their support behind her latest cause: defeating President Obama’s pick for a top Treasury Department spot.
The Progressive Change Campaign Committee is sending emails to backers, calling on them to call members of the Senate Finance Committee and urge them to oppose the president’s nomination of Antonio Weiss.
{mosads}Obama nominated Weiss to fill the top domestic policy spot at the Treasury, but the pick has earned the ire of Warren, who argues that Weiss’s time as an investment banker makes him a bad fit for the position. She also has argued too many high-ranking administration officials have ties to Wall Street. Some other left-leaning lawmakers like Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) have also aired concerns about the pick.
The administration remains behind the Weiss nomination, and has touted his years of work on complex financial issues as a potential boon at a critical role.
But PCCC is working to scuttle the pick at the committee level.
In the email, the PCCC criticizes Weiss’s work on tax inversions – a corporate restructuring that reduces U.S. tax obligations that has been criticized by the administration — as well as his Wall Street resume.
Backers will also have the option of calling committee members to oppose the pick. A script provided by PCCC argues Weiss lacks the proper experience.
“We need someone in this key leadership role who will look out for the interests of everyday Americans — not just Wall Street banks,” the script goes on to read.
The Senate has yet to schedule any action on the Weiss nomination, which was announced on Nov. 12. And with Senate Democrats spending the last few days of the 113th Congress trying to clear as much of the current nominee backlog as they can before losing the majority in 2015, it’s likely Weiss will not receive any consideration until January at the earliest.