President Obama's nominee for surgeon general is expected to finally get a Senate vote Monday evening. It's been
more than a year since his nomination:
President Obama nominated Dr. Vivek Murthy to be U.S. surgeon general on November 13, 2013. The Senate health committee signed off on him in February.
At that point, the nomination ran into an NRA roadblock. Murthy's confirmation has been held up because, as Hunter put it, Murthy "once opined that getting shot was, according to available medical evidence, bad for you." Even as Republicans fearmongered about Ebola in the run-up to November's elections, they continued to oppose Murthy. Because teaching at Harvard medical school and being an attending physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital are not good enough qualifications to overcome the position that high rates of gun violence are a public health concern.
After the NRA announced its opposition, Republican opposition hardened and some Democrats became scared to vote for him. On Saturday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid used a session forced by Sen. Ted Cruz' anti-immigrant crusade to advance Murthy's nomination, along with several others Republicans had been stalling.
If confirmed, Murthy would be the first Indian-American surgeon general.