WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced Thursday that the Senate will reconsider the nominations of Rep. Mel Watt to be chairman of the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, and Patricia Millett to be a judge on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals "in the very near future," making the pledge just hours after Republicans blocked both of them.
Reid also issued a statement threatening to change the Senate's filibuster rules if the GOP doesn't allow their confirmations.
The senate majority leader said he will try again on Watt and Millett, accusing Republicans of unprecedented obstruction.
"I will exercise my right as majority leader to reconsider these nominations at some point in the very near future," Reid said. "I hope my Republican colleagues will reconsider their continued run of unprecedented obstructionism. Something has to change, and I hope we can make the changes necessary through cooperation."
Watt, an 11-term congressman and senior member of the House Financial Services Committee, would succeed acting FHFA Director Edward DeMarco, one of the few holdovers from the Bush administration, who has expressed support for the wind down of Fannie and Freddie and their replacement with privately backed entities.
