By David Morgan
(Reuters) -President Joe Biden’s nominees to the Federal Reserve moved a step closer to their expected Senate confirmation this week after Lael Brainard, Biden’s pick to be the U.S. central bank’s vice chair, cleared a procedural hurdle Monday evening with some support from Republicans.
The 54-40 vote to end debate on Brainard, currently a Fed governor, was the first of a pair of so-called cloture votes standing between the Fed nominees and a Senate confirmation vote. A cloture vote on a second Fed nominee, Michigan State University’s Lisa Cook, could come as early as Tuesday.
If Cook also overcomes the procedural hurdle, as is expected, confirmation votes for them, as well as Fed Chair Jerome Powell, renominated to his current position, and Davidson College dean of faculty Philip Jefferson, nominated to a vacant seat on the Board, would be expected later this week.
All are set to be confirmed, although Brainard and Cook’s vote will be narrower. Eight Republicans joined Democrats in voting to end debate on Brainard’s nomination Monday.
The Fed at its policy meeting next week is expected to deliver a half percentage point interest rate hike and announce the start of a reduction in its giant balance sheet as it ramps up its fight against 40-year high inflation.
Cook and Jefferson would likely join after that meeting, taking part in deliberations over what are expected to be interest-rate hikes at every subsequent Fed meeting this year and into at least the first part of next year.
Cook would be the first Black woman to serve on what is currently an all-white Fed Board, and Jefferson would be the fourth Black man to serve in the central bank’s more than 100-year history.
(Reporting by David Morgan and Ann Saphir; Editing by Leslie Adler and Aurora Ellis)
