Meet Richard Shelby, the Alabama Republican who admits he’s holding up Obama nominees so he can win reelection

Meet Richard Shelby, the Alabama Republican who admits he’s holding up Obama nominees so he can win reelection

The New York Times profiles the shameless Richard Shelby of Alabama, who has idled the Senate Banking Committee that he now chairs because he wants to win his Republican primary. Shelby “now has the distinction of running the only committee in the Senate that has not acted on a single nominee in this Congress,” the Times notes. By putting his own self-interest ahead of the country’s, Shelby has demonstrated (once again) that he and his party care more about winning than governing.