WASHINGTON (AP) – The Senate confirmed Dilawar Syed as deputy administrator of the Small Business Administration on Thursday, ending more than two years of delays after a Republican gridlock in the last Congress.
Syed will be the highest-ranking Muslim official in the US government.
Republicans on the Small Business Committee had blocked his nomination, citing the agency’s payments to abortion providers and other reasons. President Joe Biden had first nominated the Pakistan-born businessman to the post in March 2021, and renominated him this year in the new Congress.
Syed was upheld 54-42
Sen. Ben Cardin, a Maryland Democrat who chairs the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee, said before the vote that the deputy administrator position at the SBA has been vacant for nearly five years in two presidential administrations.
“It’s time to do it,” Cardin said.
Syed’s nomination stalled in committee last Congress after Republicans repeatedly failed to show up for votes. Republicans, led by Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul — then the top Republican on the panel — offered several different explanations, including Syed’s affiliation with a Muslim advocacy group, the small business loans he received and, ultimately, the agency’s loans to Planned Parenthood branches.
The standoff led to Democratic accusations of anti-Muslim bias and galvanized some Muslim and Jewish organizations to condemn the delay.
Rabbi Jack Moline, then president of the Interfaith Alliance, argued at the time that the inaction was an “excuse for a lot of problems that have nothing to do with fitness for office.”
With an increased majority this year that gave Democrats an extra vote on the committee, the panel approved Syed’s nomination in March, two years after he was first appointed. Five Republicans voted to confirm him in Thursday’s final vote.
Republicans on the committee still have objections. Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst, the new top Republican on the business committee, said she believes Syed was slow to disclose the loans he had received and was not open enough to questions as the committee has worried about potentially fraudulent pandemic loans.
“I am not convinced that Mr. Syed is ready and willing to change the culture of the SBA and bring much-needed accountability to the agency,” Ernst said.
Lina Khan, the chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, is also a Muslim.
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Associated Press writer Seung Min Kim contributed to this report.
