This post was originally published on this site
https://images.mktw.net/im-13162875
The Social Security Administration again has a confirmed commissioner, after a two-and-a-half-year wait.
The Senate voted 50-11 in favor of confirming Martin O’Malley, a former governor of Maryland, as Social Security commissioner. President Joe Biden nominated O’Malley in July, and in November, the Senate Committee on Finance voted 17-10, including three Republican votes, to send O’Malley’s nomination to the Senate floor.
“Throughout his career in public service, Martin O’Malley established an unimpeachable record of modernization and increased transparency squarely focused on helping Marylanders get the services they count on,” Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, who is chair of the Finance Committee, said in a statement in support of O’Malley’s confirmation on Monday. “He understands better than most that there is no Republican or Democrat way to fill a pothole or improve customer service.”
In the last 30 years, there have been five confirmed commissioners of the agency, along with seven acting commissioners. Commissioners are appointed for six-year terms.
“Having someone who is an acting [commissioner] is always less powerful than someone who has gone through the official confirmation process,” said Maria Freese, senior legislative representative at the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, a liberal advocacy group. Acting commissioners are akin to substitute teachers in the classroom, Freese said, adding that as a confirmed commissioner, O’Malley will face fewer limitations when advocating for the agency, including for funding.
O’Malley will finish the term of former Commissioner Andrew Saul, which expires in January 2025. Biden fired Saul, who had been appointed by President Donald Trump, and accepted the resignation of Saul’s deputy commissioner, David Black, in 2021, and named Kilolo Kijakazi acting commissioner. Critics argued that Biden’s decision to let go of Saul and Black politicized the agency, and during O’Malley’s confirmation hearing earlier this year, senators questioned the nominee about whether and how he would use politics in his role.
During the hearing, O’Malley said Social Security was facing a “customer-service crisis.”
“This is not the greatness of America,” he said. “This is not acceptable.” He also said that assuming the role of commissioner would be “the honor of a lifetime.”
