The near party-line confirmation followed a dramatic afternoon of vote-switching. Heitkamp flies in to save Jones

After a five-hour cloture vote that had to wait for Heidi Heitkamp to arrive from North Dakota, President Barack Obama finally got his man to lead the ATF.

The near party-line confirmation followed a dramatic afternoon of vote-switching and awaiting Heitkamp’s arrival to be the critical 60th vote to end debate on the nomination of B. Todd Jones to serve as director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.


Obama blamed Republicans for delaying the confirmation vote on Jones and past ATF nominees while describing Jones as but a small part of his effort to combat gun violence.

“While Todd’s confirmation will help ATF apply the tools it needs to protect our communities from dangerous criminals and reduce gun violence, we can’t stop there,” Obama said. “I will continue to stand with the majority of Americans who support common-sense reforms to keep dangerous weapons out of the hands of criminals.”

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The 53-42 confirmation vote served as an anticlimactic end to a drama-filled cloture vote on the Senate floor. With only 58 votes for cloture, Democrats converged on Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), imploring her to switch her vote from no to yes as GOP leadership urged the opposite.

After some 40 minutes of lobbying from the likes of Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Murkowski changed her vote. That left a four-hour wait before Heitkamp, who had been home sick in North Dakota, to arrive in Washington after catching a connecting flight from Minneapolis.

“This position hasn’t had a director for seven years and it’s way past time that the job is finally filled,” Heitkamp said in a statement released by her office.

As the Senate waited for Heitkamp to return, activists on both sides of the gun debate urged supporters to call her office on Jones’s nomination. Gun Owners of America Executive Director Larry Pratt tweeted out the phone number to the senator’s office urging a no vote. Moms Demand Action, a pro-gun control group, asked its followers to call to urge a yes vote.

The drama surrounding Heitkamp was sparked when Murkowski provided the 59th vote for cloture following an intense lobbying effort on the Senate floor from Schumer, Boxer, Feinstein and others. Murkowski, who was a key cog in the Senate deal to allow votes on Obama’s nominees to lead the Labor Department and Environmental Protection Agency also heard on the floor from Republicans including Minority Whip John Cornyn of Texas, who urged the Alaskan to stand by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the GOP’s ranking member on the Judiciary Committee who protested the vote.

Murkowski later released a statement saying she changed her vote on cloture because she was under the impression that Jones was under investigation for whistleblower complaints about his tenure as the U.S. attorney for Minnesota. She said she will oppose Jones during the confirmation vote.

“During the vote, I was informed by colleagues that the investigation phase has concluded and a mediation process has been initiated to resolve this issue,” Murkowski said. “Based on this new information, I voted to proceed to a yes or no vote on which I will cast my vote against Mr. Jones.”

Among those lobbying Murkowski to vote “yes” was Feinstein, who refused to divulge the topic of conversation. On the other side, Cornyn a no vote, pitching the case Grassley made on the Senate floor before the vote – that no vote on Jones should proceed because he had not answered questions about the whistleblower investigation to his satisfaction.

“It’s fair to say she’s being talked to by a lot of people. And I’m one of them,” Cornyn said. “There’s an unresolved whistleblower retaliation. I encouraged her to wait until that’s resolved.”

Ultimately Murkowski was not swayed by that argument, which Grassley said he was pushing to his caucus. After huddling with senators of all ideological shades. Murkowski switched her vote.

Democrats argued – as Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) did prior to the vote – that the investigation had little to do with his suitability to lead the ATF, the agency tasked with enforcing the nation’s gun laws.

This isn’t the first time the freshman Heitkamp has appeared at the center of a gun-related controversy. She was one of four Democrats to vote against the background checks bill, much to the dismay of the White House and gun control groups that had anticipated her support.

Since 2011 Jones has served as both the U.S. attorney for Minnesota and interim director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. His confirmation seemed likely this week after the National Rifle Association vowed to remain neutral and the National Shooting Sports Foundation, which represents gun manufacturers, endorsed it.

But even GOP senators who have backed gun control measures in the past – like Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, who lent GOP credibility to Obama’s failed background checks push in April – voted against cloture for Jones despite the free pass from the gun groups.

Jones did draw support for cloture from Sens. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who opposed both the background checks bill and did not take part in the deal to preserve the filibuster earlier this month. Graham opposed Jones’s nomination when it was voted out of the Judiciary Committee.

Sens. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), Susan Collins (R-Maine) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) voted for cloture for Jones and for the background checks deal.

Kirk was the only Republican to vote for Jones’s final confirmation. All 52 Democrats and two independents voted to confirm Jones.

Jones is the first ATF director ever confirmed by the Senate. Before 2006, ATF directors did not require Senate approval. Since then, no ATF nominees have survived the Senate.