Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said Majority Leader Mitch McConnell "broke his word to me." | AP Photo Reid lays into McConnell over stalled nominee

Harry Reid pulled out all the stops against Mitch McConnell on Thursday, accusing the majority leader of reneging on a promise over a key Obama nominee in yet another episode of the Senate’s confirmation wars.

Thursday’s outburst centered on the nomination of Jessica Rosenworcel, a member of the Federal Communications Commission who can no longer serve after this year. In Reid’s re-telling of the story, he had locked in an agreement in December 2014 with McConnell to move Rosenworcel’s re-nomination alongside a Republican FCC nominee, Mike O'Rielly.


Reid, then the outgoing majority leader, agreed to confirm O'Rielly that month, on the condition that McConnell would take up Rosenworcel’s nomination quickly once he took over control of the Senate. But 16 months later, her nomination is still languishing.

“It’s difficult for me to be here today to talk about what I’m going to talk about, because I believe that the Senate operates only when there’s trust among the members of this body,” Reid said in an unusually personal floor speech Thursday. But “the Republican leader, McConnell, broke his word to me.”

Rosenworcel’s term expired at the end of last year, but under FCC rules she can serve until the end of 2016. The Senate Commerce Committee approved Rosenworcel’s renomination for a new five-year term late last year.

Long-simmering frustration from Democrats over Rosenworcel’s stalled nomination flared up during a Senate Commerce hearing on FCC oversight last month, when current FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler refused to commit to following long-standing tradition and step down at the end of President Barack Obama’s term. That, Republicans fear, could leave a lengthy Democratic majority at the FCC, regardless of which party wins the White House in November.

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune (R-S.D.) later said if Wheeler had committed to stepping down, the Republicans with holds on Rosenworcel’s nomination would be more willing to lift them. Sources familiar with the dispute say Republican Sens. Mike Lee of Utah and Ted Cruz of Texas are behind the holds.

“The Chairman committed to moving the nomination out of committee, and he did. Once the nomination was reported, there was a hotline; there were, and remain, a number of objections from Senators,” McConnell spokesman Don Stewart said in response to Reid’s speech. “But since Rosenworcel is already serving on the commission and she can continue to serve until the end of the year, today’s remarks were disappointing.”

The controversy over the FCC nominees had mostly been relegated to the committee until Thursday, when the fight spilled over to the Senate floor with Reid’s sharp rhetoric.

“I’ve waited. I’ve waited patiently for my friend to do the right thing. I’ve held off for months coming to the floor. What else could I do? What else could I do?” said Reid, who said he approached McConnell again last December, then again each month this year on the stalled nomination.

In yet another dig at McConnell, Reid said he understood that he has a difficult job — something Reid knows personally because “I’ve had that job a lot longer than he has.”

“Because of the dysfunction in his caucus, it’s difficult — I’m told and as we see — for him to get things done,” Reid continued. “But that’s no excuse for someone not keeping their word.”