Cook inches toward Fed as Senate votes to discharge nomination

Lisa Cook cleared another hurdle toward becoming the first Black woman to join the Federal Reserve Board as the Senate on Tuesday voted to discharge her nomination from committee.

The 50-49 vote clears the path for the Senate to vote on Cook’s confirmation after her nomination stalled this month with a 12-12 tie in the Senate Banking Committee. A tie in committee requires the Senate to vote to discharge the nomination before holding a vote on confirmation.

“We’ve got to have a second vote because Republicans, for whatever reason, voted against Lisa Cook, including some calling her not qualified,” Senate Banking Chairman Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, said in an interview this month. “Only Spelman, Truman Scholar, Oxford and a Ph.D. at Berkeley, but I guess that’s not qualified if you’re a Black woman for this crowd.”