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IowaPolitics.com: Anonymous hold placed on Nussle's budget nomination
7/11/2007

By Nicole Duran
For IowaPolitics.com

Senate Democrats aren’t feeling very charitable toward former GOP Rep. Jim Nussle.

Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) confirmed Tuesday that an anonymous “hold” has been placed on Nussle’s nomination to lead the Office of Management and Budget.

Conrad said he did not know who placed the hold — any senator can prevent a nomination, or legislation, from coming to the floor by objecting, even anonymously, to the Senate majority leader. Holds are traditionally honored, though the majority leader may ignore it if he feels the hold has been placed for too long.

Conrad did not say if the senator was a Republican or a Democrat, though it is highly unlikely that a Republican would object to Nussle in such a manner. Conrad did tell Roll Call, a Capitol Hill newspaper that “five Senators came to me, as I said before, and expressed strong reservations about this nomination.”

When President Bush nominated the former House Budget Committee chairman to head his budget office last month, Democratic leaders predicted a less-than-smooth confirmation process for the former eight-term Congressman.

Democrats accuse Nussle, who retired from Congress last year to make an unsuccessful gubernatorial run, of rubber-stamping President Bush’s deep tax cuts, which Democrats considered fiscally irresponsible.

During Nussle’s watch, the deficit soared and three times Congress failed to establish a budget blueprint. Democrats made no secret that they planned to use Nussle’s confirmation hearing as a way to highlight what they call Bush’s “reckless” fiscal policies.

Nussle’s reputation as a partisan prone to playing hardball isn’t doing him any favors.

Nussle is scheduled to meet with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) today to discuss how the impasse may be broken.


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