WASHINGTON — The Senate Foreign Relations Committee advanced the nomination Wednesday of Rahm Emanuel to serve as the next ambassador to Japan despite opposition from two Democratic senators.
The bipartisan committee advanced Emanuel's nomination favorably to the Senate floor by voice vote, though Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., voted against it. Some Democrats from the progressive wing have come out against Emanuel because of how he handled the 2014 fatal shooting of Laquan McDonald, a Black teenager, by a white police officer when he served as mayor of Chicago.
In a statement, Merkley said, “Black Lives Matter. Here in the halls of Congress, it is important that we not just speak and believe these words, but put them into action in the decisions we make.”
“I have carefully considered Mayor Emanuel’s record — and the input of civil rights leaders, criminal justice experts, and local elected officials who have reached out to the Senate to weigh in — and I have reached the decision that I cannot support his nomination to serve as a U.S. Ambassador,” he continued.
Of the 11 Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Merkley and Markey were the only two to vote against the nomination.
Meanwhile, several Republicans including the panel's ranking member, Sen. James Risch, R-Idaho, have publicly backed Emanuel for the role. Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., who served as ambassador to Japan under then-President Donald Trump, introduced Emanuel at his confirmation hearing last month.
Emanuel’s nomination could be saved if several Republicans also vote to confirm him when it comes before the full Senate. Three other GOP senators, Roy Blunt, of Missouri, Lindsey Graham, of South Carolina, and Susan Collins, of Maine, have also expressed support, according to The Washington Post.
Last month, when asked if President Joe Biden considered Emanuel’s handling of the McDonald shooting in choosing him as an ambassador, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said, “The president nominated Rahm Emanuel to serve as ambassador to Japan because he's somebody who has a record of public service, both in Congress, serving as a public official in the White House, and certainly also as the mayor of Chicago. And he felt he was somebody who could best represent the United States in Japan.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., is among the Democrats who have urged the Senate to reject Emanuel’s nomination, though as a member of the House she has no say over the vote.
Before Emanuel, 61, served as Chicago’s mayor, he served as then-President Barack Obama’s first White House chief of staff. He also previously served in Congress and in then-President Bill Clinton’s White House.
