The Senate narrowly confirmed Lisa Cook, President Joe Biden’s nominee for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, on Tuesday despite reports of her being unqualified.
The vote reached a 50-50 tie which Vice President Kamala Harris broke by voting in favor of Cook, the Hill reported. All 50 Democrats voted to confirm the Michigan State University economics professor and former Obama staffer, while all Republicans voted against her.
Cook was nominated on Jan. 14 to serve on the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.
Critics told the The Daily Caller News Foundation Cook is not qualified to serve on the board and has misidentified her economic experience. A senior Republican Senate aide previously told the DNCF that she is one of the least qualified Fed nominees in history and that her background has no connection to monetary economics. Cook has claimed she is a macroeconomist, though her published work shows no indication of that, according to the DNCF. (RELATED: ‘Hyper-Partisan’ Fed Nominee Blocks Senate Banking GOP On Twitter)
The Senate just confirmed Lisa Cook to the Federal Reserve Board!
She serves on @ChicagoFed‘s advisory boards. She’s an Economics Professor at Michigan State. She’s served on @WhiteHouseCEA.
And now she’ll be the first Black woman to sit on the Federal Reserve Board!
— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) May 10, 2022
Many Democrats urged Biden to nominate Cook since the start of his presidency and touted her research in the economic effects of racism and economic history, the Hill reported. Very little of her writings include titles referencing central banking, financial industry supervision, monetary policy or inflation.
She has served on the Board of Directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago since Jan. 10 before her nomination to the board.
Before being nominated, the Wayback Machine digital archive stated that her research has been in “peer-reviewed journals as the American Economic Review,” then once she was nominated it had been updated to say “her research has appeared in such journals as the American Economic Review,” the DNCF reported.
Cook has also publicly supported economic reparations for black Americans and other “race-specific” financial payments.