US Senate Holds Off Confirming Ambassador to Mexico as Battle Over Cuba Rages Nahal Toosi and Burgess Everett - Politico
go to original October 21, 2015

In June, the administration nominated Roberta Jacobson (Getty)

Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio and fellow Sen. Robert Menendez, both angry over the Obama administration’s diplomatic opening to Cuba, are now targeting America’s ties to a far more important neighbor: Mexico.

At issue is who, if anyone, will serve as the next U.S. ambassador in Mexico City during the final year of Barack Obama’s presidency.

In June, the administration nominated Roberta Jacobson, the State Department’s assistant secretary for Western Hemisphere affairs, who helped lead the negotiations that re-established U.S. diplomatic ties to Cuba. But her confirmation has been held up in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, with the vote postponed earlier this month. The committee is expected to vote in favor of Jacobson during its next business meeting, but the nomination is then likely to languish indefinitely on the Senate floor unless Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) deems it a priority.

The holdup, sources familiar with the committee said, centers directly on Jacobson’s work on Cuba.

The delays in her committee approval have “everything to do with the Cuban policy,” said Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland, ranking Democrat on the committee. “That’s not Roberta Jacobson. That’s the Obama policy.”

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