Nomination Withdrawn
After a morning of rumors, it was confirmed yesterday afternoon that New York Congresswoman Elise Stefanik’s nomination to become U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations was being withdrawn. Not because of scandal, but due to votes. And not that she would not get enough votes to be confirmed…but if she gave up her seat in Congress to be U.N. Ambassador, the Republicans would lose a reliable vote that would make it hard to pass legislation, and could even lead to the GOP losing the House majority should a special election to replace her be won by Democrats.
After the 2024 election, lots of folks noted how slim the GOP House majority was…and for each member who was named to an Administration post, the numbers got slimmer and slimmer. Speaker Mike Johnson even joked that he told the President, “enough, already!”
It’s a numbers game, pure and simple. But it’s a loss for the country, since Congresswoman Stefanik would by all accounts have been a terrific U.N. Ambassador. She gave up her House leadership position—she was #4 in the hierarchy—once she was nominated for the U.N. job, so she winds up being the one on the sidelines due to the shuffle in a couple of ways.
Democrats, of course, are spinning it that Republicans are afraid they won’t win the special election to replace her. Actually, the bigger part of it is that the New York governor—a Democrat—was in control of setting the date for the special election. Word was she was planning to delay it as long as possible, to make sure the seat was not regained by the Republicans.
So it’s all numbers, and all politics. The impact on governance, sadly as always, was not even a consideration.
