Senate Banking Republicans said Tuesday they would block a committee vote on whether to advance five Federal Reserve Board nominees until they get more information about Sarah Bloom Raskin’s involvement in a fintech company.
Sen. Patrick J. Toomey, R-Pa., the committee’s ranking Republican, said his party would boycott the vote, denying the quorum needed to advance six nominees: five to the Fed, including Chairman Jerome Powell, and one to the Federal Housing Finance Agency.
President Joe Biden nominated Raskin to be the Fed’s vice chair for supervision, a position that would allow her to set the Fed’s regulatory agenda. Republicans criticized her views on climate change and financial risk, but lately have focused their objections to her involvement with Reserve Trust, a Colorado-based fintech company that was granted a Federal Reserve master account while she was on the company’s board of directors.
“Important questions about Ms. Raskin’s use of the ‘revolving door’ remain unanswered largely because of her repeated disingenuousness with the Committee,” Toomey said in a statement. “All senators – not just Banking Republicans – deserve straightforward and honest answers from Ms. Raskin before having to cast a vote on her nomination.”
Raskin joined the company’s board of directors in 2017, after a three-year stint as the second-in-command at the Treasury Department. Before joining Treasury, Raskin was on the Federal Reserve board from 2010 to 2014.