I hate saying this but I agree with Senator John Cornyn (R. TX) on this:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
John Cornyn, the number two Republican in the Senate, would oppose Larry Summers if he were nominated to chair the Federal Reserve, Cornyn's spokesperson told HuffPost. Summers, who is widely considered to be President Barack Obama's top choice to lead the central bank, has run into a thicket of opposition across the political spectrum.
Cornyn's opposition is a signal that Republican skepticism of Summers will be broad and deep, as outside conservative organizations are also beginning to take up the fight. Earlier this week, Roll Call reported that the American Principles Project, a conservative organization closely allied with Cornyn's fellow Texan senator, Ted Cruz (R), is also battling Summers. "We want to see as many groups as possible on the right and the left" opposing his nomination, APP's Rich Danker told Roll Call.
Cruz spokesman Sean Rushton said the senator hasn't taken a position on Summers and won't until there's a Fed chair nominee.
Republican opposition will require the president to look for support from his own party's senators, which is quite a challenge considering that more than 20 Democratic senators have publicly called on him to nominate Fed Vice Chair Janet Yellen rather than Summers. - Huffington Post, 9/12/13
Now I appreciate Cornyn opposing Summers' nomination but he's doing it for the wrong purposes. While Democrats are concerned about Summers' connections to Wall Street, Republicans like Cornyn don't want Summers to head the Federal Reserve because they view him as the embodiment of the president's economic policy. Summers supported the stimulus package and the auto industry bailout. Plus this is also a big concern:
http://www.motherjones.com/...
Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers' consulting gig with the banking behemoth Citigroup could come back to haunt him if he is nominated to succeed Ben Bernanke as chairman of the Federal Reserve. Bernanke's term expires in January, and Summers and Janet Yellen, the central bank's vice-chair, appear to be front-runners for the post, with media reports suggesting that President Barack Obama is fond of the controversy-prone Summers. But there may be a hitch with a Summers appointment. After Obama took office in 2008, he enacted sweeping ethics rules that say that no presidential appointee can work on matters directly related to a former employer for two years after taking a government job. That means that unless Obama grants Summers an exemption from the rules—a move that could be politically controversial—the former Treasury secretary will have to recuse himself from a slew of Fed decisions involving Citi, which is the third-largest bank in America. Experts say those recusals could hamper Summers' ability to run the Fed effectively.
"Citigroup is a behemoth on Wall Street, and constantly subject to Fed regulatory actions," says Craig Holman, the architect of Obama's 2009 ethics rules and currently a government affairs lobbyist for the consumer watchdog Public Citizen. "I would expect Summers would have to recuse himself quite frequently." He adds, "Recusal can be expected to be so frequent as to hinder Summers' ability to carry out his job as Fed chairman."
The Obama administration has granted dozens of ethics rules waivers since 2009, but they have mostly gone to lower-level appointees with limited conflicts of interest. Were Summers to be granted a waiver, according to Holman, it would be the most significant one yet.
If appointed, Summers might have to remove himself from consultations on penalties levied against Citi for things like sketchy foreclosure practices and inadequate anti-money-laundering protections. Nor would he be able to vote on post-financial crisis rules that Congress ordered the Fed to draft, including restrictions on CEO pay and guidelines for how much emergency capital Citi has to keep on its books. (The Fed board votes on all regulations, mergers, and applications to form new banks; it has voted 20 times so far in 2013. Penalty decisions are often delegated to staff or regional reserve banks, but the board consults on them.) - Mother Jones, 9/12/13
But Cornyn's "Nay" vote will help increase opposition to Summers' nomination in the U.S. Senate:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
The three Democratic senators who have been Summers’s most vocal opponents sit on the committee that must clear his nomination before it is sent to the floor: Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Jeff Merkley (Ore.) and Elizabeth Warren (Mass.). If they vote against Summers, Obama would need help from at least two Republicans to get his nominee out of committee.
Sen. Mike Johanns (R-Neb.) told Roll Call that he would be “open” to confirming Summers, and a spokesman said Johanns will wait until the nomination is made before making his decision. Johanns and Sen. Bob Corker (Tenn.) were among a handful of Republican senators on the banking committee who voted to advance Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke’s second term in 2010.
Earlier this year, all 10 GOP committee members approved the president’s picks to lead the Council of Economic Advisers, Jason Furman, and the Securities and Exchange Commission, Mary Jo White. But they opposed Rep. Mel Watt (D-N.C.) to oversee the Federal Housing Finance Agency. His nomination eked by the Democrat-led committee but is in limbo before the full chamber.
The math at the Fed also does not help Obama: Four women could be leaving the central bank, including Yellen if she is not picked as chairwoman and steps down. Names of only two women — Lael Brainard, a senior official at the Treasury Department, and Jan Eberly, former chief economist at Treasury under Clinton — have surfaced as possible replacements. - The Washington Post, 9/12/13
Now I also wouldn't bet on Cornyn being in favor of having Janet Yellen as the new Fed chairwoman, despite the high recommendations she's getting from economists:
http://www.cbsnews.com/...
More than 350 economists have a signed a letter to President Barack Obama calling on him to nominate Federal Reserve Vice Chair Janet Yellen to be the Fed's next chairman. The letter is designed to draw attention back to Yellen amid signs that Obama is leaning toward nominating his former economic adviser Larry Summers.
The letter, whose signers include economists with past ties to Obama, credits Yellen for prescience in warning in 2005 about an impending real estate meltdown, for her consensus style of leadership and for her commitment to job growth.
"We believe that Janet Yellen is an extremely effective leader who has demonstrated her capacity to work with the other FRB governors and to bring important perspectives of the American people to her leadership and decisions," the letter states.
The White House on Tuesday declined to comment when asked about the letter.
Signers include Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz and Alan Blinder, a former economic adviser to President Bill Clinton and former Fed vice chair himself. Among those who have closer ties to Obama are Christina Romer, the former head of Obama's Council of Economic Advisers; Laura Tyson, a former top Clinton adviser and former member of Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board, and Alice Rivlin, a former director of Clinton's budget office and Obama's appointee to the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. - CBS News, 9/11/13
Please do contact your Senator and let them know you oppose Summers' nomination and want Janet Yellen to lead the Fed:
http://www.senate.gov/