B. Todd Jones
The filibuster agreement reached a few weeks ago in the Senate was on extremely shaky ground Wednesday, when the Senate experienced a rare moment of true drama (though you might not have recognized it as drama if you were watching C-SPAN2). The crisis was averted, however, and the nomination of B. Todd Jones to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives was finally confirmed,
with a vote of 53-42.
But the cloture vote was where all the action (or what passes for action in the Senate) was. Either Harry Reid or John McCain got a commitment from a senator to vote yes on cloture and that senator reneged, or they're bad counters. There wasn't supposed to be drama on this one, not after the NRA made the shocking annoucement that they would remain neutral on this vote. They would not oppose Jones. They would not use this vote against incumbent senators.
The cloture voted started at 2:00 ET Wednesday afternoon. The roll was called. All of the senators but one voted. Then . . . silence. The tally stood at 58-41. The one senator who hadn't voted was a Democrat. Without a switched GOP vote, disaster loomed. After more than an hour, a group of senators, including McCain, huddled around Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), who had voted no on the motion to move the nomination to a vote. Republicans Kelly Ayotte (NH), Susan Collins (ME), Lindsey Graham (SC), and Paul Kirk (IL) had already joined McCain in voting to consider the nomination. Murkowski's switch was critical, and after more than an hour's worth of lobbying on and off the floor, she switched her vote. The tally stood at 59-40, one vote shy.
That put the focus on the missing Democrat, Heidi Heitkamp (ND). Initial reports of where she might be were confused. Maybe she was hiding out? Maybe she was off cloistered with senators trying to sway her vote. But it turned out to be a far less exciting story: She got sick while in North Dakota during the weekend, and hadn't returned to D.C. yet. She hopped on a plane to cast the deciding "yes" vote, after the vote was held open for more than four hours.
That left the actual confirmation vote feeling rather anti-climatic. But this confirmation is yet another critical one. There's hasn't been a confirmed director at ATF since 2006. Jones has been the acting director of the agency since September 2011. Perhaps more important, the filibuster deal held on by the skin of its teeth, even though Jones was not included in the original deal, and this was one of the toughest nominations Democrats faced.
Read President Obama's statement on the vote below the fold.
Statement by the President on the Confirmation of Todd Jones as the Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives
Todd Jones is a tough and tested law-enforcement professional with decades of experience, and his confirmation to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is both welcome and long overdue. For nearly seven years, Senate Republicans had refused to confirm an ATF director—not because they thought the nominees weren't qualified, but because they put politics ahead of the agency's law enforcement mission.
I applaud Senator Reid, Senator Leahy, Senator Klobuchar, and the bipartisan group of senators who broke through that gridlock to give Todd Jones the up or down vote he deserved. But while Todd’s confirmation will help ATF apply the tools it needs to protect our communities from dangerous criminals and reduce gun violence, we can't stop there. I will continue to stand with the majority of Americans who support common-sense reforms to keep dangerous weapons out of the hands of criminals. And I will continue to do everything in my power to keep our children and our communities safe.