Senate Democrats Discharge Biden Fed Nominee with History of Black Lives Matter Bullying

Senate Democrats discharged Biden Federal Reserve nominee Dr. Lisa Cook, who has a history of canceling those critical of Black Lives Matter (BLM), supporting reparations, and advocating for policies that could politicize the Fed.

The Senate voted on Tuesday to discharge Cook from the deadlocked Senate Banking Committee when the committee voted 12-12 after Banking Republicans unanimously opposed her nomination. Republicans all voted against the motion to discharge her nomination, except for Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA), who did not vote. Kennedy had voted against her nomination in committee.

The Senate voted 50-49 to discharge her from the committee, which will make her eligible for a full Senate confirmation vote, although she will face a tough voting schedule, as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) plans to spend next week confirming Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) said in an exclusive statement to Breitbart News that Cook would politicize the Federal Reserve.

Cook, if confirmed, would be the first black woman Fed governor, and Democrats have claimed that she would bring a different perspective to the nation’s central bank.

“She’s a Ph.D. economist, she is a tenured professor, and she is sought by organizations around the world for her input and perspective. She will bring a critical voice to the Fed — one that has been missing for far too long,” Senate Banking Committee Chairman Sherrod Brown (D-OH) said.

Republicans have questioned her experience and sounded the alarm about her political activism.

Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA), the ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, said on the Senate floor ahead of the vote:

Professor Cook’s history of extreme left-wing political advocacy and hostility to opposing viewpoints also makes her unfit to serve on the Fed.

As I’ve said numerous times, it is exceptionally important to keep politics out of the money supply. But unfortunately, we’ve seen the encroachment of politics at the historically independent Federal Reserve.

There are people on the left, including in the Biden administration, advocating that the Fed use its supervisory powers to resolve complex political issues, like what to do about global warming, social justice, and even education policy. These are important issues. But they’re wholly unrelated to the Fed’s limited statutory mandates and expertise.

Professor Cook’s record indicates that she is likely to inject further political bias into the Fed’s work—at a time when hyper-focus on inflation and adherence to the Fed’s dual mandate is at its most critical.

In over 30,000 public tweets and retweets, Professor Cook has supported race-based reparations, promoted conspiracies about Georgia voter laws, and sought to cancel those who disagree with her views, such as publicly calling for the firing of an economist who dared to tweet that he opposed defunding the Chicago police.

After Banking Committee Republican staff highlighted these tweets for the public’s attention, Professor Cook blocked the Banking Committee Republican Twitter account—one day before her nomination hearing. Apparently Prof. Cook not only realizes how inflammatory her own tweets are, but also has no regard for the Senate’s constitutional responsibility to vet her public statements.

Cook, a professor of economics and international relations at Michigan State University, gave a presentation in support of H.R. 40, a bill that would create a commission to study and develop reparations proposals.

She has also appeared to agree with calls to have the Federal Reserve focus on targeting its federal funds rate to improve the black unemployment rate, rather than the national employment rate.

The Federal Reserve nominee has also said that alleged disparities in coronavirus aid are due to “systemic racism.”

She has also indicated support for reparations, instituting affirmative action at California universities, corporate board diversity quotas, and job guarantees.

She seemed to suggest that this may not be enough, which is why we need “blue sky thinking” to address the “systemic issues … structural racism and racial disparities.”

University of Chicago economics professor Harald Uhlig in June 2020 criticized the Black Lives Matter movement for its “full fledged-support” of defunding the police.

Cook soon took to Twitter to accuse Uhlig of “racial harassment” and called on Uhlig to be fired as the editor of the Journal of Political Economy and removed from working with students.

She claimed that “free speech has its limits.”