News Desk: The US Senate on Tuesday confirmed Lisa Cook to the Federal Reserve, making her the first Black woman to serve on the central bank's board.
Her nomination was narrowly approved on a party line vote. With all Democrats in support and all Republicans opposed in the evenly divided chamber, Vice President Kamala Harris — in her role as president of the Senate — broke the 50-50 deadlock.
“The vice president votes in the affirmative, and the nomination is confirmed,” Harris told the Senate.
Cook's green light now clears the way for Fed Chair Jerome Powell's confirmation to a second term at the helm of the country's most powerful financial institution.
A researcher focused on how discrimination has harmed the American economy and the damage downturns do to the poor, Cook is expected to bring a new perspective to the Fed.
She is the daughter of a Baptist chaplain and a professor of nursing, and bears physical scars from racism after she was attacked as a young child while involved in an effort to integrate racially segregated schools in the southern state of Georgia.
As an adult she has dedicated much of her research to previously unmeasured economic damage from discrimination on the productive capacity of the world's largest economy.
Cook was one of President Joe Biden's picks to fill open seats on the Fed's seven-member Board of Governors, along with Philip Jefferson of Davidson College, who would be the fourth Black man to serve on the body.
But her confirmation was delayed in late April when Covid infections among Democratic senators allowed Republicans to block the vote on her nomination.
Critics say Biden's choices would politicize the Fed's stewardship of the economy at a critical time, with inflation at a 40-year high and millions of jobs lost during the Covid-19 pandemic still missing.
Others, including conservative political commentator George Will, have questioned Cook's credentials.
