{"id":556522,"date":"2021-06-08T08:07:20","date_gmt":"2021-06-08T12:07:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=556522"},"modified":"2021-06-08T08:35:24","modified_gmt":"2021-06-08T12:35:24","slug":"gop-delaying-bidens-personnel-agency-choice-over-critical-race-theory-abortion-rights-support","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/gop-delaying-bidens-personnel-agency-choice-over-critical-race-theory-abortion-rights-support\/","title":{"rendered":"GOP Delaying Biden&#039;s Personnel Agency Choice Over &#039;Critical Race Theory,&#039; Abortion Rights Support"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">26<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fgop-delaying-bidens-personnel-agency-choice-over-critical-race-theory-abortion-rights-support%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=556522&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/GetFile-371.aspx\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"  style=\"display:none\"><\/div>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span id=\"docs-internal-guid-04799242-7fff-3bc6-806d-cacf2c7fb85a\">Senate Republicans are delaying confirmation of President Joe Biden\u2019s nominee to lead the federal personnel agency due to her past support of &#8220;critical race theory&#8221; and abortion rights.<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span id=\"docs-internal-guid-04799242-7fff-3bc6-806d-cacf2c7fb85a\">Kiran Ahuja was cleared to lead the Office of Personnel Management by a key committee nearly two months ago. Her nomination is among &#8220;a long queue of Biden nominees pending&#8221; in the Senate, the<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/politics\/biden-personnel-chief-hawley\/2021\/06\/07\/c8f9aba8-c54a-11eb-9a8d-f95d7724967c_story.html?utm_source=feedly&#038;utm_medium=referral&#038;utm_campaign=wp_politics\"> Washington Post<\/a> said Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span id=\"docs-internal-guid-04799242-7fff-3bc6-806d-cacf2c7fb85a\">Ahuja likely will be confirmed eventually in the evenly divided Senate, but a vote on the nominations might not happen before senators leave for their summer recess.<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span id=\"docs-internal-guid-04799242-7fff-3bc6-806d-cacf2c7fb85a\">Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., is leading the effort to block Ahuja, although senior Democrat and GOP officials told the Post several Republicans objected to a quick confirmation vote for her.<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span id=\"docs-internal-guid-04799242-7fff-3bc6-806d-cacf2c7fb85a\">Critical race theory is defined by the<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/critical-race-theory\"> Encyclopedia Britannica<\/a> as the concept in which race is a socially constructed category ingrained in American law intended to maintain social, economic, and political inequalities between whites and nonwhites. It holds that the U.S. society is inherently or systemically racist.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span id=\"docs-internal-guid-04799242-7fff-3bc6-806d-cacf2c7fb85a\">The Office of Personnel Management plays a role in diversity and inclusion training for federal employees, as well as in carrying out abortion policy since it runs the largest employer-sponsored health insurance program in the country with 4 million enrollees.<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span id=\"docs-internal-guid-04799242-7fff-3bc6-806d-cacf2c7fb85a\">&#8220;Senator Hawley has a hold on Kiran Ahuja&#8217;s nomination because of her history promoting radical critical race theorists,&#8221; Hawley spokeswoman Kelli Ford said in an email to the Post. &#8220;These associations merit real scrutiny, especially in light of Ms. Ahuja\u2019s nomination to a role that would allow her to reinstate race-based training sessions throughout the entire federal government.<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span id=\"docs-internal-guid-04799242-7fff-3bc6-806d-cacf2c7fb85a\">&#8220;Democrats sought to fast-track a vote, but Senator Hawley believes adequate debate time and full Senate consideration is needed for this nominee.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span id=\"docs-internal-guid-04799242-7fff-3bc6-806d-cacf2c7fb85a\">Republicans, saying critical race theory is divisive and false, have moved to ban its teaching in schools through measures in GOP-led state legislatures.<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span id=\"docs-internal-guid-04799242-7fff-3bc6-806d-cacf2c7fb85a\">Former Vice President Mike Pence, in a speech last week to a party group in New Hampshire, called systemic racism a &#8220;left-wing myth&#8221; and said critical race theory was teaching children to &#8220;be ashamed of their skin color.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span id=\"docs-internal-guid-04799242-7fff-3bc6-806d-cacf2c7fb85a\">In a blog post last year, Ahuja linked to an article that claimed former President Donald Trump\u2019s election was an example of white supremacy. Her blog post also spoke of freeing Black, indigenous, gay, and transgender Americans from the &#8220;daily trials of White supremacy.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span id=\"docs-internal-guid-04799242-7fff-3bc6-806d-cacf2c7fb85a\">Ahuja&#8217;s support for abortion rights also is an issue with Republicans. The Hyde Amendment, a long-standing ban on federal funding for the procedure, has become a heightened issue because of Biden\u2019s support for overturning it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span id=\"docs-internal-guid-04799242-7fff-3bc6-806d-cacf2c7fb85a\">Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, ranking Republican on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, cited critical race theory and Ahuja&#8217;s support for abortion rights as reasons for his &#8220;no&#8221; vote. The committee approved her nomination in April.<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span id=\"docs-internal-guid-04799242-7fff-3bc6-806d-cacf2c7fb85a\">The three agencies in charge of the overall management of the government and its 2.1 million career employees are without permanent leadership six months into the Biden administration. No one has been confirmed to lead the General Services Administration, and nobody has been nominated to lead the White House Office of Management.<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span id=\"docs-internal-guid-04799242-7fff-3bc6-806d-cacf2c7fb85a\">Ahuja, a 49-year-old attorney and daughter of immigrants from India, served at the relatively obscure personnel department in the Obama administration. She then was chief executive of a network of philanthropy organizations in the Pacific Northwest.<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span id=\"docs-internal-guid-04799242-7fff-3bc6-806d-cacf2c7fb85a\">The White House and some Senate Democrats have pushed Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to bring the nomination to a quick vote. GOP opposition, however, will force Schumer to go through procedural hurdles on the Senate floor, rather than move quickly with a pro forma vote that is more common for nominees to lower-profile posts.<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span id=\"docs-internal-guid-04799242-7fff-3bc6-806d-cacf2c7fb85a\">&#8220;OPM plays a key role in carrying out President Biden\u2019s efforts to rebuild and revitalize our federal workforce, which includes many of my constituents,&#8221; Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., said in an email. &#8220;It\u2019s crucial that the Senate move quickly to confirm her.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span id=\"docs-internal-guid-04799242-7fff-3bc6-806d-cacf2c7fb85a\">\u201cKiran Ahuja is a qualified, experienced, and dedicated public servant who we are looking forward to leading the Office of Personnel Management in its work protecting the safety of the workforce, empowering federal employees, and building a federal workforce that looks like America,\u201d Chris Meagher, a deputy White House press secretary, wrote in an email.<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span id=\"docs-internal-guid-04799242-7fff-3bc6-806d-cacf2c7fb85a\">Ahuja\u2019s husband, Javier Guzman, the deputy general counsel for Harvard University, is Biden\u2019s nominee to lead the Department of Justice\u2019s civil division.<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"divArticleRelatedStories\">\n                    <strong>Related Stories:<\/strong><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Senate Republicans are delaying confirmation of President Joe Biden\u2019s nominee to lead the federal personnel agency due to her past support of &#8220;critical race theory&#8221; and abortion rights. Kiran Ahuja &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2279579,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/GetFile-371.aspx","fifu_image_alt":"GOP Delaying Biden&#039;s Personnel Agency Choice Over &#039;Critical Race Theory,&#039; Abortion Rights Support","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-556522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/GetFile-371.aspx","fifu_image_alt":"GOP Delaying Biden&#039;s Personnel Agency Choice Over &#039;Critical Race Theory,&#039; Abortion Rights Support","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=556522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556522\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2279579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=556522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=556522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=556522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}