Washington: The Senate on Tuesday confirmed four of President Biden’s ambassadors, slowly advancing a confirmation process that has stalled under protest from Republican senators.
All four nominees passed by voice vote, signaling bipartisan support and their appointments as noncontroversial.
The confirmed ambassadors include former Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake (R) as the envoy to Turkey and former New Mexico Sen. Tom Udall (D) to be ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa.
Cindy McCain, the wife of the late Arizona Sen. John McCain (R), was confirmed as the U.S. envoy to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture with the rank of ambassador.
And attorney and activist Victoria Reggie Kennedy was confirmed to be ambassador to Austria.
They are the first tranche of ambassadors to be confirmed following the sole confirmation of Ken Salazar on Aug. 11 as U.S. ambassador to Mexico.
While the senate confirmation process can be drawn out and bureaucratically burdensome, the holdup on Biden’s nominees, especially for the State Department, are the result of a blanket hold by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).
Cruz block has been in opposition to Biden’s handling of a Russian gas pipeline.
