Dive Brief:
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A Senate panel held a hearing Thursday for Acting Education Secretary John B. King Jr.'s nomination to head the department and is expected to vote March 9 on recommending his confirmation.
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Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), who held the education secretary's post under former President George H.W. Bush, announced the vote at the conclusion of two-hour hearing of the Senate Health, Education Labor and Pensions Committee.
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President Barack Obama originally planned to simply keep King's post an interim position, but nominated him after Alexander asked the president to bring the nomination to the Senate.
Dive Insight:
Thursday's fairly uneventful hearing took only two hours and lacked the partisan rancor that has characterized the current Supreme Court vacancy debate. King has been serving as acting secretary since Arne Duncan left at the end of 2015, and signs are that his nomination will go through the full Senate with few issues.
That comes even though King has championed some stances that typically split politicians, including his positions on student testing and teacher evaluations.
The fact that there was a confirmation hearing at all is worth some reflection. Alexander asked the president to submit King to a typical nominating process, which wasn't technically necessary for such a short term and could have provided some punching-bag political fodder in this election year. But this straightforward process allows the Senate leadership to say it is perfectly capable of functioning as it should -- when the right nominee is sent to Capitol Hill.
Given that reality, if the panel backs King's nomination March 9, it's hard to imagine a scenario in which the Senate would not follow suit.
