Senate Foreign Relations Committee Advances Five Nominations to the Floor
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Summary
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted to send five presidential nominees to the Senate floor by affirmative recommendation; the committee then proceeded to hearings with three additional nominees.
WASHINGTON — The Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted on a slate of presidential nominees during its business meeting and advanced five nominees to the Senate floor by affirmative recommendation before proceeding to televised confirmation hearings.
Committee members moved and seconded the motions to send the nominations to the floor, and the clerk recorded the roll calls for each nominee. The five nominations advanced included Caleb Orr for Assistant Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs; Kenneth Howery to be ambassador to the Kingdom of Denmark; Clista Gingrich to be ambassador to the Swiss Confederation and Liechtenstein; Summer Farkas to be ambassador to Malta; and Leonardo Vizzuto to be the U.S. representative to the Organization of American States.
Clerk roll calls produced affirmative recommendations for each nominee and the committee then transitioned to hearings for Joel Rayburn, Michael DeSombre and Michael Pratt. Several senators offered brief remarks when advancing nominees; for example, Sen. Shaheen said she would support Caleb Orr while seeking clarity on his eventual responsibilities given Department of State reorganization plans.
Discussion vs. decision: These were formal committee actions to move nominations to the Senate floor for consideration; the committee's votes were recorded by the clerk. The hearing portion of the meeting followed the business votes.
Ending: The committee completed its business and proceeded with the confirmation hearing for the three nominees scheduled for that session.