POLITICO Pro Murthy confirmed as surgeon general

The Senate on Monday narrowly confirmed Vivek Murthy to be the nation’s surgeon general, making him one of the highest-profile beneficiaries of the Senate’s nuclear option.

The nomination was strongly opposed by the National Rifle Association because of Murthy’s support of gun-control laws and by Republicans who doubted that a 37-year-old physician was qualified for the public health position.


Senate Democrats are still juggling about two dozen executive branch nominations in the closing days of the 113th Congress but scheduled Murthy’s vote first, marking it as one of the most controversial and most important.

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Democrats confirmed him, 51-43, with the support of a lone Republican: Mark Kirk of Illinois. Democrats Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Joe Donnelly of Indiana and Joe Manchin of West Virginia opposed him; all hail from red states where the gun lobby is particularly powerful.

The lack of 60 votes means Murthy quite likely would not have been confirmed had Democrats not amended the Senate’s rules last November. That controversial change ultimately reduced the amount of support needed for executive branch nominees from 60 senators to 51 senators.

Murthy’s not the only person to benefit, of course. This year, the rules change helped the Senate push through Mel Watt, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, and up to 37 other nominations, according to a Senate Democratic aide. But for several months, Republicans widely used their “no” votes on cloture to register their disapproval of the Democrats’ move. It’s unknown whether they would have voted differently had the rule not been changed.

President Barack Obama first nominated Murthy to be the nation’s “top doctor” in November 2013, several months after the position became vacant with the resignation of Regina Benjamin.

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Murthy will “bring his lifetime of experience promoting public health to bear on priorities ranging from stopping new diseases to helping our kids grow up healthy and strong,” Obama said in a statement after the confirmation vote. “Vivek will also help us build on the progress we’ve made combating Ebola, both in our country and at its source.”

The NRA had made Murthy a top target of opposition over several of his comments in support of gun control laws. Democrats, nervous about angering the gun lobby ahead of the midterm elections, shelved the nomination for much of this year.

“We were running up against opposition from the gun groups, which of course has its influence on both sides of the aisle,” said Sen. Dick Durbin, the majority whip.

But the vacancy became politically significant when West Africa’s Ebola outbreak spread to the United States in September. Republicans criticized the White House for not having a qualified nominee for the job, while Democrats blamed the GOP for blocking Murthy amid an international health crisis.

Republicans have strongly opposed him not only because of his gun-control views but because of what they say are his lack of qualifications for the job and past political involvement. Murthy was the founder of Doctors for Obama, a group that backed the president’s 2008 campaign.

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“With America facing the challenge of Ebola and other serious health challenges, it’s unfortunate that the President chose a nominee based on the candidate’s political support instead of a long career delivering patient care and managing difficult health crises,” Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said in a statement.

And Sen. Lamar Alexander, the top Republican on the Senate health committee, also noted his disappointment in a statement. “Unfortunately, Dr. Murthy’s experience does not demonstrate the leadership and knowledge of public health that we expect from our surgeons general,” Alexander said.

Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), a physician, said on the Senate floor Monday that the majority of Murthy’s career has been “as an activist focused on gun control and political campaigns.” America should have had an “experienced doctor in the job of surgeon general to lead our fight against Ebola,” he said.

As for the Democrats who voted against him, Manchin said he questioned whether Murthy could separate his politics from the job. Heitkamp questioned whether he had enough health experience.

”There are severe gaps in his basic qualifications that we as a country expect from our doctor of the nation — including experience in public health education training and management,” Heitkamp said in a statement. “Dr. Murthy is a talented individual who I have no doubt has a promising career ahead of him.”

Donnelly called Murthy a talented physician but said he had “concerns about his ability to serve as our nation’s leading medical voice on critical public health issues.”

Murthy’s nomination was widely supported by public health groups, such as the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Public Health Association. Democrats praised him as an innovative thinker in health care, citing his creation of a community health partnership in rural India and an HIV/AIDS education program of volunteers in India and the United States.

Educated at Harvard and Yale, Murthy is an internal medicine physician and educator at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School.

During his confirmation hearing in February, Murthy said that as surgeon general, he would focus on prevention and would try to reduce the nation’s obesity rate, particularly among children.

He acknowledged why his role at Doctors for Obama — which was later renamed Doctors for America — generated opposition from Republicans.

“I recognize that some of the work that I’ve done in Doctors for America, where we supported the ACA, can be perceived as partisan,” Murthy said in his only mention of the politics of the group. “I think it was unfortunate — and I think all of us believe this way — it was unfortunate that the discussion about health care became very partisan and it became polarized. In an ideal world, it wouldn’t have been that way.”

The reason he supported the health law “was not because it was perfect and it’s not because we believed it would solve all of our health care problems,” he said. “But it was because we did believe it would take some steps forward to addressing some difficulties we had seen as health care providers.”