New York Times
Getting back to business post-Thanksgiving, the Senate is scheduled to vote Monday evening on the stalled nomination of Gayle Smith to be administrator of the United States Agency for International Development.
White House officials have been pushing for her confirmation for months, saying that the vacant post in the nation’s chief humanitarian aid organization was badly hindering efforts to help refugees from the conflict in the Middle East. But Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, had put a hold on Ms. Smith’s nomination along with others in protest of the nuclear deal with Iran.
Republicans finally agreed this month to set a vote on Ms. Smith, a National Security Council official held in high regard in the humanitarian community. The federal agency is not responsible for resettling refugees domestically but works overseas, making it more difficult for Republicans to defend blocking the nomination at the same time they were pushing for refugee efforts to be focused internationally rather than in the United States.
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