January 5, 2006: Former Campaign Chairman’s Appointment to State Department Position Called ‘Disastrous’

President Bush appoints Ellen Sauerbrey (see October 11, 2005) to the position of assistant secretary of state for population, refugees, and migration. Bush grants Sauerbrey a “recess appointment,” enabling her to avoid the usual Senate confirmation process, after the Senate Foreign Relations Committee showed reluctance to confirm her for the post. During the confirmation hearings, Barack Obama (D-IL) told her, “It doesn’t appear that you have very specific experience,” and Barbara Boxer (D-CA) convinced the committee to postpone a vote on her nomination. Salon calls her appointment “disastrous” for the State Department. “Her job description is to help coordinate humanitarian assistance across the globe, but it’s clear that her first concern will always be to appease America’s extreme right,” Representative Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) says. “There’s a reason the president had to sneak this appointment past the Senate.” Phyllis Oakley, who held the position from 1993 through 1997, says that Sauerbrey entirely lacks the experience necessary to perform her duties. Sauerbrey is, however, very popular among the right wing of the Republican Party, winning her popularity by hosting a religious/conservative television talk show before chairing Bush’s 2000 presidential campaign in Maryland. She is a staunch opponent of legal abortion, sex education, and birth control. Jodi Jacobson of the Center for Health and Gender Equity says that Sauerbrey’s positions could have a powerfully negative effect on US refugee policies: “In refugee settings, 80 percent of refugees are women and children. There are extremely high rates of sexual violence and coercion in refugee settings. You have a really, really high need for effective reproductive and sexual health programs that would include access to emergency contraception and HIV prophylactics and that kind of thing.” In Sauerbrey, she says: “You have a person in there who A) doesn’t have any experience dealing with refugee movements, refugee resettlement, refugee crises, and B) has an ideological agenda against the single most important health intervention for refugee women.” [Salon, 1/6/2005]