Gregg Ends Bid for Commerce Job

WASHINGTON — Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire abruptly withdrew Thursday as the nominee for commerce secretary, saying he had “irresolvable conflicts” with President Obama over his economic stimulus plan and a concern over what many fellow Republicans believe is the politicization of the 2010 census.

Senator Judd Gregg withdrew his nomination for commerce secretary during a news conference on Capitol Hill on Thursday.

The departure of Mr. Gregg is the latest setback to a White House that has struggled to fill several top positions and to fulfill Mr. Obama’s pledge of building a bipartisan administration. He is the third prospective cabinet secretary — the second for the Commerce Department — to remove his name from consideration.

“I’m a fiscal conservative, as everybody knows, a fairly strong one,” Mr. Gregg told reporters at a news conference in the Capitol. “And it just became clear to me that it would be very difficult, day in and day out, to serve in this cabinet or any cabinet.”

“It was my mistake, obviously, to say yes,” he added.

But the political fallout is left to the White House, which now has a string of appointees who have stepped aside over vetting problems, unpaid taxes or philosophical differences with Mr. Obama. Since the president took office last month, not a week has passed without the White House responding to a personnel crisis.

Mr. Gregg said he alerted Mr. Obama to his decision “several days ago,” but administration officials said the senator’s withdrawal had taken them off guard.

The White House sought to contain the political fallout, issuing a terse statement and pointing out that Mr. Gregg had said he would “support, embrace and move forward with the president’s agenda.”

Mr. Obama, traveling in Illinois, told reporters that he had spoken to Mr. Gregg on Wednesday but that he did not know he planned to withdraw until Thursday. He said that the senator had had a “change of heart” and that he intended to keep his pledge of a bipartisan cabinet.

“I am going to keep working at this,” said Mr. Obama, adding that the American people were “desperate” for Democrats and Republicans to work together.

Mr. Gregg would have been the third Republican in the cabinet. The others are Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.

The appearance by Mr. Gregg at his news conference in the Capitol was one of the few he had made in public all week. Senators assumed that he was preparing for his confirmation hearings, but he was huddled with his wife, Kathy, and a small circle of advisers trying to determine how he could undo his decision last week to join the Obama administration.

Mr. Gregg did not vote on the administration’s $789 billion economic stimulus plan the first time it came up in the Senate. He declined to tell reporters on Thursday how he would vote when the bill came up for final passage, but he expressed his disagreement with the policy by criticizing the plan in his withdrawal statement.

Senator Judd Gregg withdrew from consideration to be Commerce Secretary during a press conference on Capitol Hill on Thursday.

“It has become apparent during this process,” Mr. Gregg said, “that this will not work for me, as I have found that on issues such as the stimulus package and the census, there are irresolvable conflicts for me.”

“We are functioning,” he added, “from a different set of views on many critical items of policy.”

The White House signaled last week that it would exert greater control over the Census Bureau, in part because of a concern among minority groups over Mr. Gregg’s leading the Commerce Department. Then, in response to complaints by Republicans, the administration said that it would work closely with the director of the census, but that the census would not be under the direction of the White House.

The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, had recommended Mr. Gregg for commerce secretary. The White House accepted Mr. Reid’s suggestion, in part, because the president had said he wanted his cabinet to be filled with a variety of viewpoints.

Senator Judd Gregg withdrew his nomination for commerce secretary during a news conference on Capitol Hill on Thursday.

Mr. Gregg praised Mr. Obama for this in his news conference. “He has been a person who has reached out and aggressively reached out, across the aisle,” the senator said. “And I immensely respect that, and I immensely respect him.”

The roster of fallen cabinet nominees also includes Tom Daschle, who stepped aside last week as the nominee for health and human services secretary because of questions about unpaid taxes, and Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, who withdrew from consideration as commerce secretary because of an investigation into state contracts.

Mr. Obama’s choice for chief performance officer, Nancy Killefer, pulled her name from consideration because of unpaid payroll taxes for a household employee. Gen. Anthony C. Zinni was offered the position of ambassador to Iraq, but the opportunity was retracted.

Senator Judd Gregg with President Obama and Vice President Biden at the White House on Feb. 3, when his nomination was announced.

Mr. Gregg will remain in the Senate and said he would help Mr. Obama accomplish some pieces of his agenda, like reworking Social Security. “I do believe, genuinely, that I can be even more effective for this presidency in the Senate,” Mr. Gregg said.

Mr. Gregg added that he would not seek re-election to a fourth term in 2010, making him the fifth Republican senator to announce plans to retire next year.

Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff who had been a strong proponent of Mr. Gregg’s nomination, sought to play down his decision to withdraw. “It is better that it happened now,” Mr. Emanuel said, “than when you have someone in the government.”

Among the responsibilities facing the next commerce secretary is oversight of the government’s multibillion-dollar rescue of the Detroit automakers Chrysler and General Motors.

Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, a West Virginia Democrat who is the chairman of the Commerce Committee, said he wished that Mr. Gregg had “thought through the implications of his nomination more thoroughly before accepting this post.”

Later in the day, Mr. Gregg said the census had been “only a slight issue” in his decision to withdraw. But the census has been a major issue between Republicans and Democrats for years, and Mr. Gregg has been involved in the dispute. A decade ago, he resisted efforts by President Bill Clinton to increase financing for the 2000 census.

In recent days, Republicans have been upset by suspicions that the Obama administration sought to assert more direct control over the census, a prospect they called troubling given that the president’s chief of staff, Mr. Emanuel, is a former Democratic congressman who helped his party win a majority in the House.

“We respectfully request that you reconsider and reverse your administration’s plans to transfer control of the Census Bureau and the 2010 census to the White House staff,” the House Republican leader, John A. Boehner of Ohio, wrote Thursday in a letter to the president.

The census has huge implications social and political. It is used to distribute federal money to states and cities based on population, and to redraw Congressional districts — determining how many seats in the House that growing states will pick up at the expense of states with relatively stagnant populations.

White House officials said they did not have any leading contenders for commerce secretary. It could be difficult, they feared, to attract a strong candidate who would be the third person selected for the post.

The administration did have one key position filled Thursday when the Senate, by voice vote, confirmed Leon E. Panetta to run the Central Intelligence Agency.

Jackie Calmes and David Stout contributed reporting from Washington, and Helene Cooper from East Peoria, Ill.

By : Jeff Zeleny Published on : February 12, 2009
A version of this article appeared in print on February 13, 2009, on page A1 of the New York edition.

Re-Published By : the Author