(Reuters) - The U.S. Senate Banking Committee should not vote on President Joe Biden's slate of Federal Reserve nominees while Republicans seek more clarity from Sarah Bloom Raskin on their accusations she had improperly lobbied the head of the Kansas City Fed on behalf of a fintech firm on whose board she then served.
Toomey's comments to reporters appeared to confirm the intention of Republicans on the committee, of which he is their ranking member, to boycott a meeting scheduled for Tuesday at 2.15 p.m. EST to vote on the slate of nominees to the Federal Reserve in protest against Bloom Raskin, Biden's pick for the central bank's Wall Street regulator.
Toomey said he told Senator Sherrod Brown, the Democratic chairman of the committee "that if he wishes, he can proceed with five of the six nominees that he had intended to have a vote on. Republicans will attend. We will vote. Actually a significant majority of them will pass with Republican support if he were to do that. Or he can have none. And that’s his choice. So we’ll see what he decides this afternoon."