The two-year confirmation battle over the nomination of Dilawar Syed to lead the day-to-day operations of the Small Business Administration is over.
The U.S. Senate confirmed him by a 54-42 vote with 5 Republicans joining the Democrats to back his nomination, Politico reported.
For two years, Republicans refused to even vote Syed out of Senate Small Business Committee. That committee had an equal number of Republicans and Democrats.
However, with the Democrats increasing their slim majority in the Senate in the last midterms, the same committee now with a few more Democrats sent the nomination for a full floor vote.
The Pakistani American is the highest-ranking Muslim in the Biden administration, according to the American Kahani. Republicans had tied his nomination to the use of pandemic relief to fund Planned Parenthood even though he had nothing to do with that.
Several Jewish groups supported Syed’s nomination, but the GOP accused him of being anti-Israeli.
“There’s no better person to serve the interests of small business than someone who is a successful business owner himself,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) in a tweet.
Homeland Security Today reports Syed currently works at the State Department’s Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs. He is the former CEO of Lumiata, a healthcare AI company. He also worked in the Obama administration in the State Department Global Entrepreneurship program as well as on the White House Commission on Asian American and Pacific Islander affairs.
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