‘A Way to Inflict Special Pain on the President’
Two years, three months, and nineteen days before her death, President Barack Obama nominated Cassandra Butts (photo) to become the next Ambassador to the Bahamas. A graduate of Harvard Law School, Butts had worked as an election observer in the 2000 Zimbabwean parliamentary elections, worked closely with the NAACP, and served as Deputy White House Council. Her qualifications not in dispute, all that remained was a routine Senate confirmation.
It was not to be. Blocking Obama administration appointments has long been a popular tactic by Republican senators attempting to inflict political damage, retribution or embarrassment on the president.Â
But for Arkansas Republican Senator Tom Cotton Senator Tom Cotton politics is personal.
After reports that the Secret Service had released private information about a congressional colleague, Sen. Cotton placed three ambassador nominations on hold, including that of Butts, in order to prompt action from the Obama administration. Eventually, after assurances from the Obama administration that they took Secret Service misconduct seriously, Cotton lifted two of the holds. Only one remained, the nomination for Ambassador to the Bahamas, Cassandra Butts.
In a New York Times an op-ed by Frank Bruni, who had spoken to Butts about the standoff two weeks before her death, Butts confronted Cotton over his continued hold. “She told me that she once went to see [Sen. Tom Cotton] about it, and he explained that he knew that she was a close friend of Obama’s — the two first encountered each other on a line for financial-aid forms at Harvard Law School, where they were classmates — and that blocking her was a way to inflict special pain on the president.”
Bruni contacted a spokesman from Cotton’s office, who did not dispute the details of meeting, going on to stress that Cotton had “enormous respect for her and her career.” For Tom Cotton, being qualified for a position has nothing to do with appointing someone to that position. This was personal. All she could do was wait for more reasonable heads to prevail.
On May 26, 2016, after a brief and aggressive battle with acute leukemia, Cassandra Butts died waiting. It had been more than 830 days since she was first nominated. She was 50 years old. Her nomination remains pending before the United States Senate.
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Image by Center for American Progress via Flickr and a CC license
Hat tip: Max Brantley, Editor of Arkansas Times’ Arkansas Blog